Category Archives: Book Reviews

Fields & Fantasies presents… Horns by Joe Hill

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Welcome to the October (Halloween!) pick for the Fields & Fantasies book club! Each month or so, in collaboration with my wonderful co-host Diana of Strahbary’s Fields, we’ll pick one book to read and discuss. Today, we’re looking at Horns by Joe Hill:

HornsSynopsis (Goodreads):

Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache . . . and a pair of horns growing from his temples.

At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances. A mental breakdown would have been the most natural thing in the world. But there was nothing natural about the horns, which were all too real.

Once the righteous Ig had enjoyed the life of the blessed: born into privilege, the second son of a renowned musician and younger brother of a rising late-night TV star, he had security, wealth, and a place in his community. Ig had it all, and more—he had Merrin and a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic.

But Merrin’s death damned all that. The only suspect in the crime, Ig was never charged or tried. And he was never cleared. In the court of public opinion in Gideon, New Hampshire, Ig is and always will be guilty because his rich and connected parents pulled strings to make the investigation go away. Nothing Ig can do, nothing he can say, matters. Everyone, it seems, including God, has abandoned him. Everyone, that is, but the devil inside. . . .

Now Ig is possessed of a terrible new power to go with his terrible new look—a macabre talent he intends to use to find the monster who killed Merrin and destroyed his life. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere. It’s time for a little revenge. . . . It’s time the devil had his due. . . .

My two cents:

Want to know a secret about Joe Hill’s Horns?

At its heart, Horns is a love story. A tragic one, to be sure, but lovely enough in its own way to bring tears to my eyes. Not what I expected when I picked this horror novel to enjoy during the spooky month of October.

In Horns, Ig Perrish lost the love of his life when his one-and-only Merrin was savagely raped and murdered a year earlier. Ig is widely believed to be guilty of the crime, but the case was dismissed without ever clearing his name. Ig is now a pariah, despised by all, wandering aimlessly through the shambles of his life… until the day he wakes up semi-drunk and quite hungover, and finds horns growing out of his head.

The horns are quite real, and seem to give Ig the power of persuasion: People who encounter Ig tell him their deepest, darkest secrets, and with just a nudge, Ig can get them to act on their impulses. Oh, and he seems to attract snakes as well. Meanwhile, with the ability to see inside people’s minds simply by touching them, he’s now privy to new information about Merrin’s murder, and is well on his way to tracking down her killer and making him pay.

Is Ig the devil? Is he evil? How can we explain the horns, Ig’s fondness for pitchforks, his imperviousness from fire?

The symbolism here is rich. Ig and Merrin are presented as true soul mates. When Ig loses Merrin, has he also lost his soul?

Horns is dark and scary — although the scariest element isn’t the supernatural side, but rather, the look inside the very disturbed brain of the murderer. Meanwhile, Ig and Merrin’s love story is pure tragedy — the story of a true and selfless love that is cruelly destroyed by forces outside the lovers’ control.

Written by Joe Hill, son of the legendary Stephen King, Horns feels very much like a King family novel. As in many King books, there are thematic repetitions throughout, a slow reveal of the major event with many hints and glimpses, hidden meanings in everyday objects, and the familiar (yet always scary) concept of people giving into their own worst impulses and letting their ids guide their behaviors.

Horns is a perfect read for the frightful month of October, and I can’t wait to check out the movie version starring Dan Radcliffe! (Scroll down for a peek at the trailer… )

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For another view, check out Diana’s review here.

And now for the interactive portion of our program —  a Q&A between Diana and me.

Warning: SPOILERS from this point forward. Proceed at your own risk!

Diana: What are your thoughts on Ig’s spiral into demonhood?

Lisa: I thought the author struck a great balance between humor and horror. I loved how the power of the horns meant that no one really looked twice — it was more like “oh, hey, you have horns on your head, and here’s what going on in my own twisted mind”. Ig’s transformation was a living illustration of his inner demons taking over his life, but I like that he didn’t exactly turn evil; he just became focused on vengeance and got the power he needed to attain it.

Diana: Rapes are always a sensitive subject in books and other forms of media. What were your thoughts on Merrin’s rape?

Lisa: Disturbing and awful to read about, of course. I’m glad that we knew up front what had happened to Merrin, rather than having it turn up later as a surprise. The author showed the brutality and violence of the rape, while showing the twisted mind of the attacker and the sick way in which he justified his actions. It really made my heart break for Merrin, to know the terror and pain she suffered at the end.

Diana: During Ig’s Fire Sermon as he discussed what happened to Merrin I couldn’t help but think about all the times that rape was used by the Greco Roman gods as a punishment. I’ve been studying a lot of these myths so I couldn’t help but make the parallels.

This question has to be asked because it’s just this kind of book: What disturbed you the most?

Lisa: See above — knowing what Merrin went through in her final moments was the most disturbing, although I have to say that seeing inside so many people’s minds was pretty creepy too. And of course, getting an inside view into the mind of a soulless sociopath was absolutely chilling.

What did you find the most disturbing?

Diana: By the time we get to the rape scene I already felt like I was wallowing in the mud so by the time we got to the really nitty gritty the stuff that was going on didn’t disturb me as much. The thing that made me squirm was every time a snake died. I have some as pets and it’s kind of like dogs in movies for me. I cringed every time one of them got hurt or died. I am worse when it comes to dogs in movies. The moment the dog dies I’m out, people could be dropping like flies but the moment the dog gets offed I am out.

The people around Ig were pretty horrible. Were there any redeeming qualities for you?  Or do you think Joe Hill did too good of a job making us hate pretty much everyone but Ig?

Lisa: I didn’t hate everyone but Ig! Granted, most of the people were pretty despicable. But I did think his brother had redeeming qualities. He really loved Ig and Merrin too, but got too caught up in his own fear and cowardice to do the right thing. And I felt sorry for Glenna. I couldn’t hate her at all; in fact, I was hoping that she’d manage to come out of it all with some sort of happy ending. She was just a poor girl who never caught a break, and I thought she was pitiable, but not unlikeable.

Was there anyone you liked at all? Anyone who was less awful than the rest?

Diana: I liked Terry. He redeemed himself to me by the end. I agree with you on Glenna, she just couldn’t catch a break. I like her and Terry’s ending.

How do you feel about Lee’s relationship to Merrin? Do you think at some level he was justified in thinking she had feelings for him? Or do you think Lee was just a sociopath that couldn’t comprehend any normal relationship cues?

Lisa: The second option, for sure! Lee is a sociopath, and yes, he misread Merrin’s intentions, but that’s not her fault. He put on a good act and fooled a lot of people, always doing what society expected of him and looking like the perfect former sinner, a poster child for salvation — but inside, he was just twisted and beyond hope.

Diana: One of the things that he reminded me of is the recent shootings just outside of Santa Barbara and Seattle. Both of those young men acted out because they believed they were jaded by other young women. Lee really speaks to our need as a society to take a better stance in regards to mental health.

Lisa: What do you make of the treehouse? Why was it important?

Diana: The treehouse felt like it was their personal palace or safe place as you say. I like to think that they are living happily in that treehouse.

Lisa: How did you feel when you found out the big secret Merrin was keeping from Ig?

Diana: In a way it was a bit of deus ex machina, she wanted to push him away because she was sick. It was like Joe Hill wanted to make sure that we walked away liking her, or that no one reading it felt like she had it coming. (which for the record no one deserves Merrin’s fate) It is possible that she just could have gotten afraid of commitment, afraid to leave the US, I’m sure it happens all the time. On the other hand, it added to the tragedy and the parallels I made earlier with the Greek Myths and her rape, the poor girl got what she asked for, a quick way out.

Lisa: Have you read other books by Joe Hill? If so, how do you rank Horns in comparison? And if not, would you want to read more by this author?

Diana: This is my very first Joe Hill book. I am excited to discover this new to me author!

Lisa: Do you consider Horns a horror novel? Would you recommend it only to horror fans, or are there other types of reader who should check it out as well?

Diana: If we go by what Joe defined horror as, as being rooted in sympathy then yes this is a horror novel. I personally am not a horror fan, I am a thriller fan and overall this fit within the thriller genre. I do have to say, this is the first time I have simultaneously swooned and be creeped out by an ending to a book.

Lisa: Ultimately, would you describe Ig as a good person? Why or why not?

Diana: I can’t describe Ig as either good or bad…he’s just human. It’s very true to life. In stories it’s easy to say whose the good guy or whose the bad guy but in our own lives can we really point out who the good guys and the bad guys are? Ig is just like us.

And that wraps it up! Thanks, Diana! It’s a pleasure talking books with you! Let’s do this again next month…

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The details:

Title: Horns
Author: Joe Hill
Publisher: William Morrow
Publication date: 2010
Length: 368 pages
Genre: Horror
Source: Purchased

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Intrigued? Read the book for sure — but you might also want to check out the movie version:

Next for Fields & Fantasies:

gillespiesOur November book will be Hello From the Gillespies by Monica McInerney.

Book Review: Rooms by Lauren Oliver

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roomsFamily secrets boil to the surface in this debut adult novel by YA and kid lit author Lauren Oliver.

When Richard Walker dies after a long illness, cared for only by hired health aides, his estranged family returns to their old home to divvy up the wealth and clear up the detritus of his life. Along with the living family members sorting through the accumulated memories and clutter are two ghosts, Alice and Sandra, who have their own histories in the house as well.

Richard’s living relations — ex-wife Caroline, troubled daughter Minna and her daughter Amy, and tortured teen Trenton — bring all their dysfunctional strife and trauma with them as they examine the rooms of the house and make sense of what’s left. And for Alice and Sandra, the reappearance of the family members brings up their own sets of memories of their long years spent haunting the house, as well as the living years that came before.

I read Rooms expecting a ghost story, but it’s really more of a sad story of all the various ways people can hurt each other and hurt themselves. No one is happy here; in different ways, the Walkers and the ghosts have suffered sorrows in which they’ve had a hand.

The concept of the ghosts is rather interesting. Not just shades who inhabit the building, Alice and Sandra have really become one with the house. They feel each draft and splinter; the various rooms are like their organs. While the house stands and remains whole, they remain tethered to this world and to their old lives.

Rooms isn’t dull, but it also never particularly grabbed me or created any sense of suspense. Over the course of the book, each of the characters confronts the secrets and hidden truths of their lives. There’s tragedy and deception, pain and loss. What these people, alive and dead, have experienced is worthy of pity and compassion, but somehow a connection is missing. Perhaps because the book is so short, I didn’t feel that I got to know any one person well enough to truly care, so I had no investment in the outcome.

Rooms is well-written and flows quickly from one vignette to another. It’s sad rather than spooky, and lacks the oomph I would have expected in a story about ghosts and their connection to the living. Ultimately, Rooms really wasn’t my cup of tea. I prefer my Halloween reads on the edgier side.

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The details:

Title: Rooms
Author: Lauren Oliver
Publisher: Ecco
Publication date: September 23, 2014
Length: 320 pages
Genre: Adult fiction
Source: Library

Family Reading Time! A Book Recommendation.

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8230675

I Feel Better with a Frog in My Throat: History’s Strangest Cures by Carlyn Beccia
(published 2010)

After seeing this book mentioned recently by another blogger (thank you, Bookish!), I just knew I had to grab a copy at my local library.

What a treat!

In I Feel Better with a Frog in My Throat, author Carlyn Beccia takes us through the wild and wacky history of medicine by offering a quiz of sorts, complete with hilarious illustrations.

Which of the following helped cure coughs — caterpillar fungus, frog soup, or cherry bark? For a series of different ailments, we get a choice of cures, and then turn the page to see how they were used, by whom and when, and whether they worked a little, a lot, or not at all.

Can mummy powder help a wound to heal? How about maggots? Or maybe some puppy kisses? The answers might surprise you.

This book is a real multi-generational treat. I happened to bring it home from the library on a day when we had a full house. Before I knew it, I was reading this book, game show style, with various family members ranging from age 12 to 70. We giggled, we got grossed out, and we also learned something!

By the way, I was proud to show off my mad healing skills, thanks to my devoted (some might say obsessive) reading of the Outlander series. Thanks to Claire Fraser, I know all about uses of moldy bread, leeches, and spider webs!

If you have kids around the house — or even if you don’t — check out this book for some fun facts and silly learning.

Book Review: The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

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Here’s a quick look at the 2nd book in Robert Galbraith’s detective series:

(Okay, we all know the author is J. K. Rowling, right?)

The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike, #2)Synopsis (Goodreads):

When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, Mrs. Quine just thinks her husband has gone off by himself for a few days—as he has done before—and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home.

But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine’s disappearance than his wife realizes. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were to be published, it would ruin lives—meaning that there are a lot of people who might want him silenced.

When Quine is found brutally murdered under bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any Strike has encountered before…

J. K. Rowling made quite a stir when news of her authorship of the pseudonymously published mystery book, The Cuckoo’s Calling, was leaked last year. Rowling said in several interviews that she wanted the experience of being a new writer, outside the glare of the intense media scrutiny that follows her every move. The Cuckoo’s Calling was Rowling’s 2nd book for adults (after The Casual Vacancy), written in her post-Potter years — and once author Robert Galbraith was revealed to be Rowling, sales of The Cuckoo’s Calling skyrocketed. I enjoyed The Cuckoo’s Calling quite a bit; you can read my review here.

In this second Galbraith book (of a reportedly 7-book series), we pick right back up with detective Cormoran Strike, a truly wonderful character and probably the best element of these books. Strike is a big man, fearsome to behold, despite his missing leg stemming from a war injury suffered during his army service in Afghanistan. Strike is smart, obstinate, and unswerving once on the scent of a clue. He makes enemies fairly easily, and has gained notoriety in the wake of the high-profile murder he solved in The Cuckoo’s Calling. He’s also the illegitimate son of a superstar rocker, and the press loves to dwell on all the sordid details that Strike would just as soon ignore.

In the months since his brush with fame, Strike finds himself in high demand to solve cases for the rich and powerful, usually involving infidelity and general skeeviness, and perhaps that’s why he feels both pity and interest when sad-sack Leonora Quine shows up in his office asking for his help. At first, it’s a missing person case, as Leonora’s author husband has disappeared — and unlike his previous periods of hiding out and sulking, he hasn’t shown up again. As Strike begins to dig, he discovers that Owen Quine is a not terribly successful writer whose newest unpublished work skewers allies and enemies alike. There are a lot of powerful people who’d like to make sure this book never sees the light of day — and once Quine’s mutilated body is discovered, all of the book’s subjects become murder suspects.

Plot-wise, The Silkworm teeters on the edge of being overly complicated. There are dates, times, objects, motives, and secrets to unravel, on top of which, the plot synopsis for Quine’s book is a seemingly coded key to each of the main players and their hidden shames and scandals. My main complaint about The Silkworm has to do with Quine’s writing. Honestly, it’s every bit as terrible as it’s supposed to be, and his book is so heavily symbolic that only the most inside of insiders could possibly have any clue who the people being lambasted might be. I just couldn’t quite buy the idea that this awful manuscript by a washed-up, one-hit-wonder of an author could generate that much attention and kick off such a publishing world crisis.

The Silkworm is densely plotted and moves forward at an incredibly fast pace — so even though it felt a bit more convoluted than strictly necessary, I still couldn’t look away. When Strike finally solves the murder, we more or less just have to take his word for it. Yes, it’s all explained, but I’m not sure that I believe that even the brilliant Cormoran Strike could really make the intuitive leap necessary to put it all together.

Still, I enjoyed spending more time with Cormoran Strike and his terrific assistant Robin Ellacott quite a bit. They’re both fantastic characters, and the book is at its most engaging when we follow their interplay and their own inner lives and struggles. The murder mystery is twisted and suspenseful, but eventually it starts to feel like a bit too much. Full disclosure: I’m not much of a mystery fan in general, so my opinion of the case and its resolution is probably colored by that. I’d love to hear what people who are bigger mystery/thriller fans have to say about The Silkworm!

Do I recommend The Silkworm? Yes! Will I read more by Robert Galbraith? Absolutely yes! I’m really looking forward to the next installment in the Cormoran Strike series, mostly for the pleasure of spending time with Strike himself — although we all know that Rowling/Galbraith can spin a good yarn, and I’m always up for seeing whatever she chooses to do next.

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The details:

Title: The Silkworm
Author: Robert  Galbraith (aka J. K. Rowling)
Publisher: Mulholland Books/Little, Brown and Company
Publication date: June 24, 2014
Length: 455 pages
Genre: Mystery
Source: Purchased

 

Book Review: The Ship of Brides by Jojo Moyes

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20510869In 1946, thousands of war brides set sail to join the men they married and start their new lives. Can you imagine the bravery involved? Around the world, in the midst of the second World War, local girls fell into hasty, romantic marriages with soldiers stationed in their towns. Is there a more swoon-worthy ideal than the heroic GI, on leave for a few days, wooing the local girl and then heading back into battle?

Following the war, the British government made it their business to reunite the brides and their men, commissioning ships to transport the young women to England. Competition to get onboard was fierce; the brides lived in suspense, waiting for their letters to arrive to confirm that it would finally be their turn.

In The Ship of Brides by Jojo Moyes, originally published in 2005 and getting its first US release this month, we follow the journeys of four Australian war brides as they embark on their life-changing journeys. As the story progresses, we get to know more about each young woman, what makes her tick, and how she ends up crossing oceans for the sake of love. We meet:

  • Jean, the 16-year-old party girl, uneducated and slightly crass, but with a taste for fun and a daring spirit. Jean seems to 1373381genuinely love her soldier Stan, whom she married in a flurry of flirtation.
  • Avice, a wealthy society girl who always strives to be seen as the epitome of proper wifey-ness. Avice always has to be just that much better than everyone else.
  • Maggie, a farm girl who’s devoted herself to caring for her father and brothers for the last few years. She’s never been away from home until now — but can a carefree country girl find happiness among strangers in England?
  • Frances, a nurse who’s seen the horrors of war first-hand caring for released POWs in army hospitals. Frances has a reserve and dignity about her, and doesn’t appear to be caught up in the girlish frivolity of the other brides. There’s something going on behind the quiet appearance; Frances is clearly a woman with secrets.

As The Ship of Brides begins, we find out that the bride program is winding down. Some earlier voyages were made aboard luxury liners — but disappointingly for Avice and some of the others, the ship available for our group is the HMS Victoria, a British aircraft carrier that’s seen better days. Rather than sailing in comfy staterooms and dining in formal dining rooms, these brides are provided with hastily built dorm-style cabins in the nooks and crannies of the naval ship, allowed up on deck for exercise, and eating in the converted mess areas. Oh, and the sailors’ areas are strictly off-limits: Yes, these are newly married brides — but they’re also young women spending six weeks at sea in close quarters with a bunch of sailors… and you really can’t be too careful, at least as far as the Navy is concerned.

The Ship of Brides provides a vivid depiction of life on board the ship, aptly showing the unlikely contrast of frilly women’s fashions and the need for a makeshift hair salon with a naval vessel full of planes, fuel, gray walls, and a company of Marines. It’s not just the brides venturing into life-changing territory. For the men on board, the journey represents their voyage home from war — a return to normalcy, to civilian life, and to a peace-time existence that has only been a distant memory during the war years. For the brides as well as for the sailors and soldiers, the six weeks of the voyage are full of uncertainty, hope, and fear.

1172548Fear especially comes into play for the brides as they look ahead toward their married lives. Most had whirlwind romances and hasty marriages; for many, their time spent thus far with their new husbands can be counted in days or weeks. And yet, here they are, sailing around the world and leaving everything behind in pursuit of love and happiness. Nothing is guaranteed, though. After the initial giddiness of the departure from Sydney, the brides inhabit a sort of purgatory, an in-between time with no assurance of a happily-ever-after. Over the course of the journey, several brides receive the dreaded Not Wanted Don’t Come telegram — and once the husband has changed his mind, the journey is over for that bride, who is taken off ship at the next available port and sent back home to pick up her life in Australia once again. No matter how excited and in love the brides are, no matter how romantic their stories of wartime wooing, each knows that this could possibly be her own fate, and the nervous energy of uncertainly underlies each waking hour.

The book gets off to a somewhat slow start, and it’s not immediately clear at the outset who the main characters are and about whom we’re really intended to care. But within a few chapters, we begin to know the brides more deeply, and as the story progresses, we become completely invested in their fates and their potential for finding happiness.

The characters themselves are sharply defined, each with her own story to tell. Frances is the most interesting of the lot and the one whose journey I found the most compelling. There’s a noble tragedy to her tale, and I couldn’t help feeling her pain and her hope as the story unfolded. In many ways, The Ship of Brides is an old-fashioned love story, but with a sense of honor and hopefulness that I found utterly romantic. The young women are often depicted as silly girls, chasing dreams of glamorous love that can’t possibly hold up in real life, and yet there’s something so brave and vulnerable in their commitment to their dreams, stepping out into the unknown in pursuit of their hopes for happiness.

The Ship of Brides is truly a lovely book, perfectly capturing the heady adventure of wartime love, and the bravery of countless young women who took the ultimate risk in pursuit of a dream. I’d never really known much about the war bride phenomenon, and found this book to be an eye-opening peek at a unique little corner of history. I learned a lot, and yet never felt like I was reading a history lesson. Instead, I became swept up by the personalities and courage of the characters, and felt like I was on the edge of my seat, hoping and praying for a happy ending.

If you enjoy a well-written love story with unique characters and a moving narrative, check out The Ship of Brides! As for me, I’ll be reading as many books by this author as I possibly can, starting with Me Before You for a November book group selection.

See my reviews of more books by Jojo Moyes:
The Girl You Left Behind
One Plus One

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The details:

Title: The Ship of Brides
Author: Jojo Moyes
Publisher: Penguin Books
Publication date: October 28, 2014 (originally published in UK in 2005)
Length: 464 pages
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of Penguin Books via NetGalley

Blog Tour & Giveaway: Night of a Thousand Stars by Deanna Raybourn

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04_NOATS_Blog Tour Banner_FINAL

I’m delighted to be participating in the blog tour ( courtesy of Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours) for the newest historical fiction release from Deanna Raybourn, author of A Spear of Summer Grass, City of Jasmine, and the Lady Julia Grey mystery series.

Publication Date: October 1, 2014
Harlequin MIRA
Formats: eBook, Paperback
Genre: Historical FictionNew York Times bestselling author Deanna Raybourn returns with a Jazz Age tale of grand adventure…

On the verge of a stilted life as an aristocrat’s wife, Poppy Hammond does the only sensible thing—she flees the chapel in her wedding gown. Assisted by the handsome curate who calls himself Sebastian Cantrip, she spirits away to her estranged father’s quiet country village, pursued by the family she left in uproar. But when the dust of her broken engagement settles and Sebastian disappears under mysterious circumstances, Poppy discovers there is more to her hero than it seems.

With only her feisty lady’s maid for company, Poppy secures employment and travels incognita—east across the seas, chasing a hunch and the whisper of clues. Danger abounds beneath the canopies of the silken city, and Poppy finds herself in the perilous sights of those who will stop at nothing to recover a fabled ancient treasure. Torn between allegiance to her kindly employer and a dashing, shadowy figure, Poppy will risk it all as she attempts to unravel a much larger plan—one that stretches to the very heart of the British government, and one that could endanger everything, and everyone, that she holds dear.

 

My thoughts:

Deanna Raybourn excels at creating strong, sassy heroines with a flair for adventure, who aren’t afraid to break from the confines of society’s expectations and seize life (and love) whenever they get the chance.

Poppy Hammond certainly fits the bill. After her dramatic exit as a runaway bride, Poppy is restless and yearning, knowing only that she needs more in her life. The nice man who helped her flee the wedding is someone she’d like to at least thank for his efforts, leading to an impulsive escapade in which Poppy winds up in Damascus under an assumed identity… right in the midst of political upheaval, treasure hunters, danger and intrigue. Definitely all the ingredients needed to please a girl seeking adventure!

Sebastian is a heroic leading man, insultingly misunderstood by Poppy to start with, only revealing his true character and capabilities to her over time, as they plunge from one dangerous situation to another, fleeing across deserts, hiding out in old ruins, and evading bad guys with a flair that would put Indiana Jones to shame.

As in City of Jasmine, the Middle East of the 1920s offers just the right combination of beauty, danger, and old-timey espionage thrills to make Night of a Thousand Stars a romantic, exciting adventure story. The politics and history of the region in that tumultuous time are well-explained, but never in a way that’s boring or instructional. Instead, the intrigue serves as an exhilarating backdrop to Poppy and Sebastian’s growing flirtation and affections, and the two play off each other marvelously, displaying the mingled exasperation and amusement you might encounter in an old movie à la The African Queen.

While Night of a Thousand Stars works as a stand-alone novel, characters from the author’s earlier works (City of Jasmine, the Lady Julia books) are referenced. There’s no reason that you couldn’t enjoy Night on its own, but if you’re so inclined, I’d recommend reading City of Jasmine (and its companion novella, Whisper of Jasmine) first.

Overall, I found Night of a Thousand Stars to be a fun, engaging, romantic read. If you’re a fan of romantic espionage tales, don’t miss it!

Other reviews:

Interested in Deanna Raybourn’s other books? See my previously posted reviews:
A Spear of Summer Grass
City of Jasmine

Buy the Book

Amazon (Kindle)
Amazon (Paperback)
Barnes & Noble (Paperback)
Books-a-Million
iTunes
Kobo

About the Author

03_Deanna RaybournA sixth-generation native Texan, Deanna Raybourn grew up in San Antonio, where she met her college sweetheart. She married him on her graduation day and went on to teach high school English and history. During summer vacation at the age of twenty-three, she wrote her first novel. After three years as a teacher, Deanna left education to have a baby and pursue writing full-time.

Deanna Raybourn is the author of the bestselling and award-winning Lady Julia series, as well as, The Dead Travel Fast, A Spear of Summer Grass, and City of Jasmine.

For more information please visit Deanna Raybourn’s website and blog. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

 

Giveaway:

With thanks to Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, I’m delighted to be able to offer a paperback edition of Night of a Thousand Stars (available to US residents only). Click the link below to enter:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Book Review: Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins

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Isla and the Happily Ever After (Anna and the French Kiss, #3)

Stephanie Perkins excels at writing young adult novels that shine with honest emotion, likeable but flawed characters, and an unflinching look at how young people in love behave in real life. There’s no sugar-coating or fake revelations or makeovers leading to perfect relationships: The people in her novels feel alive and familiar — not an adult’s idea of what teens might be like, but real people channeled through the writer’s mind and pen (or keyboard).

Isla and the Happily Ever After is Stephanie Perkins’s third book in a loosely connected trio, following Anna and the French Kiss and Lola and the Boy Next Door. Like Anna, Isla is set in Paris at a private, expensive boarding school for Americans. In Isla, the gang from Anna has graduated and moved on, and we focus on Isla, a quiet New Yorker whom we glimpsed in the background in earlier books.

Isla (pronounced Eye-la, thank you very much) has been crushing on cute, artistic Josh since their freshman year, but when we last saw him in Anna, he had a girlfriend and didn’t seem aware of Isla’s existence. A chance encounter in a coffee shop during which Isla is extra flirty (thanks to post-dental-work Vicodin) leads to a very cute huddle in the rain, a spark of attraction, and the very big possibility that Josh might actually like Isla back.

It’s not long before Isla and Josh reconnect in Paris as their senior year begins, and before you know it, the two are hot and heavy and falling in love. But wait! The book is called Isla and the Happily Ever After, and she seems to have found her HEA… but the book is only half-way through. Whaaaaat?

Well, naturally, there are complications. Obstacles. Misunderstandings and heartbreak.

What might seem predictable or trite in a lesser piece of work feels sad but completely real here. It makes sense that these two bring all of their individual baggage to the relationship and can’t conjure an instantaneously happy life out of thin air, no matter how much they love each other. Eighteen is a tricky time to plan a future, whether it’s thinking about college plans or even longer term. Isla and Josh love each other so much, and they still fall apart. The question then becomes, can they figure it all out?

(Okay, yeah, the book title kind of flashes a big neon clue about what sort of ending we’ll get…)

I enjoyed Isla very much. The Paris setting doesn’t hurt a bit, and it’s quite fun to see Josh’s artwork through the eyes of his besotted girlfriend. Likewise, it’s great to see a central female character who’s a good person, but still has a lot to learn. The characters’ friendships and family complications add interesting twists to the plot and help make the story feel richer and fuller than it would if the love story were the only focus.

Granted, the fact that the book is set in Paris and that all of the characters have zero money problems tends to lend the story a fairy-tale feel. Maybe that would become obnoxious in a different sort of book, but in Isla, it just means that we get to enjoy these wonderful Parisian settings (and even  Barcelona) with Isla and Josh, and we readers get just as swept up by the magic of it all as the characters do.

I recommend the entire trio by Stephanie Perkins for anyone who enjoys upbeat, contemporary YA which includes gritty, romantic love and urban settings that practically scream “come here to fall in love!”.

See my reviews of Stephanie Perkins’s other books:
Anna and the French Kiss
Lola and the Boy Next Door

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The details:

Title: Isla and the Happily Ever After
Author: Stephanie Perkins
Publisher: Dutton
Publication date: August 14, 2014
Length: 339 pages
Genre: Young adult contemporary fiction
Source: Library

 

 

Book Review: Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

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LiesAuthor Robin Talley gives us a stunning look at the school integration wars of the 1950s in her debut novel, Lies We Tell Ourselves. Seen through the eyes of two high school girls — one black, one white — caught up in the terror and day-to-day struggles of the early days of a Virginia high school’s forced integration, Lies takes us behind the historical record into the hearts and minds of the young people who had to actually live it all.

We’ve all read about integration in our history books and seen the photos of the Little Rock Nine being escorted into school by police through a jeering crowd. But what must it have been like for the students themselves? What did they feel, and what did they want?

In Lies We Tell Ourselves, we see both sides of the struggle through the two main characters, Sarah and Linda. Sarah is an honors student at the black high school in town; Linda is the white daughter of the town’s virulently anti-integration newspaper editor. When the court ruling comes down which forces the local white school to open its doors to black students, Sarah, her younger sister Ruth, and eight other students become the living symbols of integration. Once the NAACP wins its case, it’s the children who have to walk the path laid out for them by their parents and other adults. Everyone is just looking for an excuse to call integration a failure, so the pro-integration side lays out strict rules for the children: No fighting, no arguing, no answering back, no defending oneself, no extracurricular activities. Go along, get along — just walking the halls is an achievement, so don’t do anything that’ll hand the other side an excuse to say it doesn’t work.

The experiences of Sarah and the others are horrifying. Yelled at, spit upon, assaulted, impeded, harrassed, and threatened, entering the school and walking to their classrooms each day is like walking through a minefield. When someone spits on Sarah or dumps milk over her head, she can’t react, but must simply move on through the day. If she gives any hint that she’s upset, it’ll give the segregationists fuel for their argument that no one is ready for mixing of the races.

I wipe the tears away and stare at my reflection until my face smooths out and my eyes go empty. This is how they have to see me. If they know I feel things, they’ll only try to make me feel worse. Maybe if I keep trying, I really won’t feel anything.

From Linda’s perspective, the “agitators” — the black students — are just ruining her senior year. Why couldn’t they stay in their own schools? Why do they need to come and cause such chaos in her own perfect little world? Even worse for Linda is her internal conflict — is it possible that the “Southern values” she’s been raised with are wrong? Is it possible that the behavior she witnesses on a daily basis isn’t about preserving tradition, but is simply ugliness and hatred?

For eighteen years, I’ve believed what other people told me about what was right and what was wrong. From now on, I’m deciding.

The day to day realities of 1959 in Virginia are simply awful to read about through the lens of our 21st century, post-Civil Rights sensibilities. The actions within the school are revolting. The verbal harassment, including the most disgusting racial epithets, are constant. The teachers and administration routinely turn a blind eye. In home ec class, Sarah is given her own sets of pots and pans to use, so that white kids don’t have to handle implements dirtied by black hands. It goes on and on, and reading about it through the words of students living it is incredibly painful.

Complicating matters even further for Sarah and Linda is that they’re thrown together as partners on a project for French class, and as they begin to know one another, each is reluctantly aware of a growing attraction toward the other. The girls spend much of their time together arguing, but beneath the racial divide, there’s a simmering interest that has nothing to do with skin color. As each girl realizes that dating boys and pretending to fit in doesn’t really work for her, entirely different questions about shame, sin, and what’s “natural” and “normal” surface.

I almost felt like telling Sarah and Linda, “don’t you have enough on your plates right now?” Just attempting a friendship is enough to get Linda ostracized and ridiculed and for Sarah to become even more of a target for the thuglike white boys from school. To pursue a same-sex relationship in the South of the 1950s seems foolhardy in the extreme, and while it was moving to see what the girls go through and how caught in a web of hatred they each find themselves, I’m not sure that the story needed one more element to put the characters at risk.

That said, I found Lies We Tell Ourselves to be a moving, important, and brave book. It’s eye-opening to take a well-known chapter of history and revisit it through the perspectives of people who lived through it. I’d thought I could imagine what it must have been like to live through those days, based on reading history books and watching documentaries. But sometimes, it takes fiction to make facts come alive, and that’s what the author achieves here. By giving us a personal point of entry to the experience, we walk the halls of the high school with Sarah and Linda and experience the fear, the hate, the humiliation, and the absolutely insane level of courage it must have required simply to take the few steps from one classroom to another.

Sarah and Linda are remarkable, unforgettable characters, and while the book ends at the conclusion of their high school careers, I can’t help thinking about how much better their lives will be from this point forward. They’ve each changed dramatically, and they’ve stood at the center of social change and survived.

Lies We Tell Ourselves would make a fantastic addition to any US History class curriculum, but more than that, its story of two brave girls trying to find their way and do what’s right should be widely read by teens and adults, in school or out. Robin Talley’s fine writing gives us a front-row seat to a difficult and important chapter of our nation’s recent history — but beyond the social value, she’s also written just a really good novel that conveys true emotion and personal growth.

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The details:

Title: Lies We Tell Ourselves
Author: Robin Talley
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Publication date: September 30, 2014
Length: 304 pages
Genre: Young adult historical fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of Harlequin Teen via NetGalley

Book Review: Prototype by M. D. Waters

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PrototypeEarlier this year, I was blown away reading Archetype by M. D. Waters, a sci-fi novel set a few hundred years in the future and focusing on the desperate measures a male-dominated society takes to reverse declining fertility rates. Did I mention the scorching hot sex scenes? Because yeah, there are those too, mixed in amidst the hospital labs and surveillance tech firms and art gallery openings (don’t ask).

In a particularly wise move, Dutton has given readers the gift of a speedy resolution, publishing the sequel, Prototype, only a few months after the first book, and I couldn’t be happier. There’s nothing I hate more* than finishing a terrific book and then holding my breath for the years it takes for the sequel to come out… by which point I’ll have either lost interest or forgotten all the details and stopped caring.

*Okay, I do hate world hunger, war, and a few other things more, but you get what I mean, right?

How do I write about Prototype without revealing any spoilers from Archetype? Very, very carefully.

In Prototype, we follow main character Emma’s journey of self-discovery as she attempts to recover from the horrifying events and revelations of the first book. And… well, damn it all, I really can’t write much of anything about this book, can I?

Emma is a terrific main character, and her world and its secondary characters are well developed and quite believable. An especially exciting sequence is set on “San Francisco Island”, and I loved every bit of the descriptions of the floating cities, intricate roadways, and newly created terrain. But that’s just a drop in the bucket.

Do you enjoy science fiction, love stories, lots of sexy times, and tons of adrenaline-fueled action sequences? How about mad scientists, illegal experiments, revolutionaries trying to free the oppressed, and a male lead who’s almost too perfect?

Well, then. All you need to know is that Prototype is the book for you. I re-read Archetype so I’d be able to go full-steam ahead into Prototype, and I highly recommend reading the two books in a row. The books flow together seamlessly and tell one complete story, and it’s hard to slow down and draw breath anywhere past page 15 or so of the first book or before the final page of the second.

Check out Archetype and Prototype. You won’t be sorry… but don’t blame me for your sleepless nights.

Want to know more? Here’s my review of Archetype.

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The details:

Title: Prototype
Author: M. D. Waters
Publisher: Dutton Adult
Publication date: July 24, 2014
Length: 372 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of Dutton

Book Review: Season of Storms by Susanna Kearsley

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Season of Storms

In the early 1900s, in the elegant, isolated villa Il Piacere, the playwright Galeazzo D’Ascanio lived for Celia Sands. She was his muse and his mistress, his most enduring obsession. And she was the inspiration for his most stunning and original play. But the night before she was to take the stage in the leading role, Celia disappeared. Now, decades later, in a theatre on the grounds of Il Piacere, Alessandro D’Ascanio is preparing to stage the first performance of his grandfather’s masterpiece. A promising young actress – who shares Celia Sands’ name, but not her blood – has agreed to star. She is instantly drawn to the mysteries surrounding the play – and to her compelling, compassionate employer. And even though she knows she should let the past go, in the dark – in her dreams – it comes back.

Sourcebooks Landmark has been reissuing Susanna Kearsley’s older books with new, gorgeous covers, and I wholeheartedly approve. Let’s take a moment to appreciate the beauty of these books:

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But back to Season of Storms. Originally published in 2001, Season of Storms mostly holds up, although (as the author acknowledges in a preface to the new edition), old technology makes certain passages and exchanges feel clunky. Still, the emotions and connections have a timeless quality to them that makes the plot work, more or less, despite the occasional awkwardness. (Remember using someone else’s computer to send an email, then getting the response printed out on a piece of paper courtesy of the computer owner? And don’t even get me started on the whole telephone issue…)

The book is much more about modern-day Celia Sands than her predecessor, whom we know only through her portraits and through the stories that have come down over the years about her mysterious disappearance. Our Celia is a bit of a blank, to be honest. She’s a 20-something aspiring actress, having very limited stage success in tiny roles, supporting herself as a waitress, and realizing that her funds are about to run out, when she’s offered the role of a lifetime, taking on the lead role in the play that the original Celia never got a chance to perform. Off our Celia goes to a lovely Italian villa, with cast members, the director, a few shady characters, and the dreamy grandson of the playwright. Gee, where is this going?

What I liked: Quite a bit, actually. Susanna Kearsley simply excels at creating a feeling of gothic romance among lush and beautiful settings, mixing in a sense of menace and otherworldly threat with the more mundane stories of people finding their way and working through their pains and sorrows. The setting in the Italian countryside evokes a luxurious time gone by, an air of mystery, and a sense of being removed from the real world. The concept of family here is very au courant: Celia’s mother is a self-centered actress with no moral compass. Celia instead was mostly raised by Rupert and Bryan, a gay couple who provided her with stability, love, and responsible role models during her mother’s self-absorbed absences and misadventures. In Season of Storms, family is where you find it — the people, regardless of blood or legality, who take you in and nurture you unconditionally.

What I didn’t like quite so much: This book, at 500+ pages, is slow and long. The first half is mostly the set-up, and it takes far too long to get to the heart of the romance, the mystery, and the adventure. Celia’s character is not well enough defined for us to really care all that much about her. I never felt a connection with her character — I knew about events in her life, but in the current drama, didn’t get a true sense of how she would feel or why. Additionally, her acting chops aren’t really established. Apparently, she’s brilliant on stage, but I found this hard to believe.

But back to the plus side: Once we finally get to the mystery in the latter half of the book, it’s quite good. There’s intrigue, red herrings, and danger. The resolution to certain parts of the mystery were truly a surprise. Also to the good: The secondary characters are all nicely drawn, with interesting lives and quirks, all unique but not too far-fetched, with personalities that stand out, are believable, and quite enjoyable.

Overall, as with all of Susanna Kearsley’s books, I enjoyed Season of Storms and was glad to have read it. It’s not her strongest, and I felt it suffered by the lack of truly interesting people in the two lead romantic roles. Still, for atmospheric romance with a touch of doomed longing, it’s hard to beat a Susanna Kearsley novel. I’d still recommend Marianna or The Winter Sea as better starting points for newbies — but for the author’s fans, Season of Storms is yet another must-read.

If you’re interested in learning more about this author’s works, check out my reviews of some of her other books:
Mariana
The Firebird
Shadowy Horses
The Splendour Falls

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The details:

Title: Season of Storms
Author: Susanna Kearsley
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Publication date: Originally published 2001; reissued September 2, 2014
Length: 504 pages
Genre: Romantic fiction
Source: Purchased