Review of I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, by Alan Bradley

Fiction Review, Historical, Mystery, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, by Alan Bradley

Delacorte Press, New York, 2011. 293 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Standout: #4, Other Fiction

Lovely! A fourth Flavia DeLuce book! I am so happy with how quickly Alan Bradley is writing! And I was all the more happy when I saw this was a Christmas book. I thought it an interesting coincidence that I read two Christmas mysteries this year (The other was A Christmas Homecoming, by Anne Perry), and both involved a theatrical company secluded at an English country home at Christmas in a snowstorm, when a murder occurs. Honestly, I enjoyed this one more because it had Flavia deLuce!

If you haven’t met Flavia before, you will probably do fine just reading this one; you will get the idea. But all the books are so much fun, I do recommend reading them all.

Flavia is an 11-year-old chemical genius with a deep love of poisons. And she’s very good at solving mysteries, but not so good at leaving crime solving to adults. Her mother died years ago climbing mountains, and her father doesn’t pay a lot of attention to bringing up his three daughters. Flavia and her older sisters manage to torment each other rather mercilessly. I did like that it wasn’t quite as bad in this installment — they showed some affection for each other at Christmas.

I love Alan Bradley’s titles, and this one comes from Alfred Tennyson’s poem, “The Lady of Shalott.” In this book, Colonel de Luce, still needing to raise money, has rented out Buckshaw to a film company. The family is still planning to use their own rooms. But then, with the village visiting to see the great film stars perform Romeo and Juliet, a blizzard hits and everyone camps out at Buckshaw — and someone dies. Flavia herself finds the body — in the middle of the night.

I’ve always said that a nice murder mystery makes the perfect Christmas reading, and I thoroughly enjoyed this one. If you can’t be snowed in yourself, how nice to read about others being snowed in, anyway. And I still can’t help but love Flavia. In this book, she does some excellent deducing, and it’s her own home, so surely she can be forgiven for nosing where she’s told to stay away?

Here are some words from Flavia herself:

“Most chemists, whether they admit it or not, have a favorite corner of their craft in which they are forever tinkering, and mine is poisons.

“While I could still become quite excited by recalling how I had dyed my sister Feely’s knickers a distinctive Malay yellow by boiling them in a solution of lead acetate, followed by a jolly good stewing in a solution of potassium chromate, what really made my heart leap up with joy was my ability to produce a makeshift but handy poison by scraping the vivid green verdigris from the copper float-ball of one of Buckshaw’s Victorian toilet tanks.”

Flavia de Luce isn’t someone you forget in a hurry. This is a lovely addition to the series, and I hope that Alan Bradley continues to add books quickly.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/half_sick_of_shadows.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Midnight in Austenland, by Shannon Hale

Austenalia, Chick Lit, Fiction Review, Mystery, Romance, Starred Review 0

Midnight in Austenland

by Shannon Hale

Bloomsbury, New York, 2012. 277 pages.
Starred Review

I’m interrupting my posting of my 2011 Sonderbooks Stand-outs to write a review of a book that will most definitely be a 2012 Sonderbooks Stand-out, if not my favorite book of the whole year.

Shannon Hale’s Austenland was a 2007 Sonderbooks Stand-out, though that was the year I was working on my Master’s in Library Science and didn’t get very many reviews written. The idea is a fun one, playing off all the Jane Austen frenzy that continues to happen in our time. It’s about a young woman who goes to what is essentially a Jane Austen theme park in England. Guests come to an English manor and are submerged in Regency culture and finish off their vacation with a ball. The original book parallelled Pride and Prejudice in many ways and was a fun and romantic read.

In Midnight in Austenland, Shannon Hale has surpassed herself.

Now, I should say that this book is particularly delightful to me because this time the heroine is a divorced mom whose husband cheated on her. I definitely related to her and her feelings as she worked through the divorce. She felt like a complete idiot because she hadn’t seen the clues that he was cheating, and as the book goes on, it dawns on her just how long he had lied to her. It’s very easy to see — when it’s someone else — that she should not beat herself up for believing someone who vowed to be true to her. But I completely related to all her turmoil about it.

I also loved this book because I am a Jane Austen aficionado. In college, I wrote my English Literature research paper on Jane Austen. I had more than a month to write it — so I spent the time reading ALL her novels and wrote the paper staying up all night the night before it was due.

Pride and Prejudice is definitely my favorite, but Northanger Abbey is the most light-hearted and just plain fun. Midnight in Austenland parallels Northanger Abbey in so many beautiful ways. In fact, the similarities enhanced the story. You see, Charlotte, our heroine in Midnight in Austenland is playing a “Bloody Murderer” game after the lights go out. In the dark, lit only by a flash of lightning, she is in a secret room and touches a cold hand attached to a covered dead body.

But when Charlotte goes back the next day, there is no body. Did she imagine it in the dark, in the night? In fact, is this book simply paralleling Northanger Abbey, in which silly Catherine Morland imagines a murder has taken place where there was none?

I don’t want to say too much more because I don’t want to give away any delicious details. I did like that Charlotte has been reading Agatha Christie, so there was still a tribute to novel-reading, as Catherine Morland had been reading The Mysteries of Udolfo. Again, we weren’t sure if Charlotte was drawing conclusions because she’d read too many detective novels.

I think I can stay spoiler-free if I simply comment that this book has the best heroine-escapes-from-deadly-peril scene EVER!

In short, Shannon Hale combines lots of humor with Jane Austen parallels, romance, suspense, mystery, gothic themes, and eerie atmosphere in a book that will make divorced women everywhere feel empowered.

You can read Midnight in Austenland without having read Austenland, though I do recommend reading both. The heroines and their stories are different — they are just at the same theme park with some of the same actors and the same administrator.

To get you in the mood, I’ll quote from some of the Prologue, where we’re told about Charlotte. It does echo Northanger Abbey:

“No one who knew Charlotte Constance Kinder since her youth would suppose her born to be a heroine. She was a practical girl from infancy, only fussing as much as was necessary and exhibiting no alarming opinions. Common wisdom asserts that heroines are born from calamity, and yet our Charlotte’s early life was pretty standard. Not only did her parents avoid fatal accidents, but they also never locked her up in a hidden attic room….

“We may never know what turned once-nice James away. Was it the fact that his wife was making more money than he was? (A lot more.) Or that his wife had turned out to be clever? (That can be inconvenient.) Had Charlotte changed? Had James? Was marriage just too hard to maintain in this crazy, shifting world?

“Charlotte hadn’t thought so. But then, Charlotte had been wrong before.

“She was wrong when she assumed her husband’s late nights were work-related. She was wrong when she blamed his increasingly sullen behavior on an iron deficiency. She was wrong when she believed the coldness in their bed could be fixed with flannel sheets.

“Poor Charlotte. So nice, so clever, so wrong.

“Charlotte came to believe that no single action kills a marriage. From the moment it begins to stumble, there are a thousand shots at changing course, and she had invested her whole soul in each of those second chances, which failed anyway. It was like being caught in her own personal Groundhog Day, only without the delightful Bill Murray to make her laugh. She would wake up, marvel anew at the bone-crushing weight in her chest, dress in her best clothes, as if for war, and set out with a blazing hope that today would be different. Today James would remember he loved her and come home to the family. Today she would win back her marriage, and her life.

“Eventually the time came when Charlotte sat in the messy ruins of her marriage and felt as weak as a cooked noodle. She would never be nice or clever enough. Hope had been beaten to death. She dried her eyes, shut down her heart, and plunged herself into an emotion coma. So much easier not to feel.

“Once numbness shuts down a damaged heart, a miracle is required to restart it. Things would prove rough for our heroine. Her only hope was Jane Austen.”

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/midnight_in_austenland.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on my own book, which I pre-ordered via Amazon.com.

Review of The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss

Adventure, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

The Name of the Wind

The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day One

by Patrick Rothfuss

DAW Books, 2007. 722 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #2 Fantasy Fiction

This book wasn’t even on my radar until the second book came out and several of my siblings bragged on Facebook about who got their hands on it first. Then my sister Marcy posted a short quotation from the sequel, and by the language alone, I knew this writer was something special. When I went to the bookstore to purchase it, I picked it up and then wandered into the music and movies section of the store. One of the employees saw me holding The Name of the Wind and talked with me for ten minutes about how it’s her favorite book! So I was already quite sure I’d made a good choice.

Then I started reading, and right away the language pulled me in. The book has the feel of a true epic, of something sweeping and important.

The book begins in an inn with a bunch of locals sitting around and Old Cob telling stories. Looking it over after reading the book, I see lots of clues about what’s to follow. On the second page of Chapter One, you understand the significance of the title in the story that’s told of Taborlin escaping from a tower and the Chandrian.

“‘But Taborlin knew the names of all things, and so all things were his to command. He said to the stone: “Break!” and the stone broke. The wall tore like a piece of paper, and through that hole Taborlin could see the sky and breathe the sweet spring air. He stepped to the edge, looked down, and without a second thought he stepped out into the open air. . . .’

“The boy’s eyes were wide. ‘He didn’t!’

“Cob nodded seriously. ‘So Taborlin fell, but he did not despair. For he knew the name of the wind, and so the wind obeyed him. He spoke to the wind and it cradled and caressed him. It bore him to the ground as gently as a puff of thistledown and set him on his feet softly as a mother’s kiss.”

We also quickly learn that there’s something mysterious about the young, red-haired innkeeper.

“He called himself Kote. He had chosen the name carefully when he came to this place. He had taken a new name for most of the usual reasons, and for a few unusual ones as well, not the least of which was the fact that names were important to him.”

I wondered about the subtitle of the book: Day One of the Kingkiller Chronicles. Was the whole thing supposed to happen in a day? Some sort of demon appears and attacks a man, and Kote deals with it without making it obvious that he knows what he’s doing. Several days pass very quickly.

Then a traveler called the Chronicler comes on the path to the inn. In the night, he encounters Kote, who saves him from an attack of more spider-shaped demons with razor-sharp feet. When Kote takes the Chronicler to his inn, the Chronicler recognizes him as Kvothe. He came there to find him, to hear the real story behind all the tales.

Kote takes some convincing. Finally, he tells the Chronicler that the only way he will tell his story is if he has three days. Three days to prepare and tell it properly. So the first book is what he tells the Chronicler on the first day, the start of his story.

Kvothe begins his tale:

“‘In some ways, it began when I heard her singing. Her voice twinning, mixing with my own. Her voice was like a portrait of her soul: wild as fire, sharp as shattered glass, sweet and clean as clover.’

“Kvothe shook his head. ‘No. It began at the University. I went to learn magic of the sort they talk about in stories. Magic like Taborlin the Great. I wanted to learn the name of the wind. I wanted fire and lightning. I wanted answers to ten thousand questions and access to their archives. But what I found at the University was much different than a story, and I was much dismayed.

“‘But I expect the true beginning lies in what led me to the University. Unexpected fires at twilight. A man with eyes like ice at the bottom of a well. The smell of blood and burning hair. The Chandrian.’ He nodded to himself. ‘Yes, I suppose that is where it all begins. This is, in many ways, a story of the Chandrian.'”

His introduction is masterful:

“My name is Kvothe, pronounced nearly the same as ‘Quothe.’ Names are important as they tell you a great deal about a person. I’ve had more names than anyone has a right to.

“The Adem call me Maedre. Which, depending on how it’s spoken, can mean ‘The Flame,’ ‘The Thunder,’ or ‘The Broken Tree.’

“‘The Flame’ is obvious if you’ve ever seen me. I have red hair, bright. If I had been born a couple hundred years ago I would probably have been burned as a demon. I keep it short but it’s unruly. When left to its own devices, it sticks up and makes me look as if I have been set afire.

“‘The Thunder’ I attribute to a strong baritone and a great deal of stage training at an early age.

“I’ve never thought of ‘The Broken Tree’ as very significant. Although in retrospect I suppose it could be considered at least partially prophetic.

“My first mentor called me E’lir because I was clever and I knew it. My first real lover called me Dulator because she liked the sound of it. I have been called Shadicar, Lightfinger, and Six-String. I have been called Kvothe the Bloodless, Kvothe the Arcane, and Kvothe Kingkiller. I have earned those names. Bought and paid for them.

“But I was brought up as Kvothe. My father once told me it meant ‘to know.’

“I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned.

“I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I have burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during the day. I have talked to gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.

“You may have heard of me.”

This is what you’re getting in this book. It’s only the start of an epic tale, basically the story of Kvothe’s childhood. We learn how he was brought up in a band of traveling players, incredibly quick to learn. We hear how his parents were killed and he spent years on the streets of a city, but then made it to the University. Along the way, a few of the things he mentioned above happen.

And in the frame, in the present time, grave things are afoot. There’s no telling how that will play out.

The worst thing about this series: It is not complete. Of course, I will have the joy of rereading the first two books when the third comes out. Patrick Rothfuss has a lot of loose ends to tie up, but I have no doubts that he will be able to pull it off.

This was the sort of book that I told everybody about while I was reading it. Now I’ll urge my website readers. This book is unforgettable. Read it!

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/name_of_the_wind.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on my own book, purchased in a Barnes & Noble bookstore.

2011 Sonderbooks Standouts: Fiction for Adults

Fiction Review, Stand-outs 0

It takes awhile to post a new page of Sonderbooks Standouts, so I’ve decided to blog about one category at a time. I will post the pages and reviews as soon as possible, but for now I can post the lists.

I’m starting with Fiction for Adults, simply because that was my shortest list. I also have more of the books already reviewed and/or posted.

The decisions in ranking were still difficult, though. Two books I read seemed resoundingly, lastingly good, and it’s hard to rank them. The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss, is written in lyrical prose and immediately pulls you in. It’s an epic that you can compare to Tolkien with a straight face. However, when I read the sequel, The Wise Man’s Fear, although it is still incredibly well-written, I did get annoyed that the story just stopped at a random place and definitely isn’t finished. I also suffered some excessive eye-rolling at the interlude involving the character learning about sex from a woman of faery whose beauty drives ordinary men mad. Though I have to admit, even that part was written expertly and compellingly.

However, another series I read completely captivated me. Even though I would probably give Patrick Rothfuss the prize for outstanding work of fantasy literature (assuming that when he finishes up, he keeps up the quality), with Sonderbooks Standouts, I’m rating how much I enjoyed reading them. So I have to give my first place honor to Daughter of the Forest, by Juliet Marillier. Like so many of my favorites, it was a fairy tale retelling, and was so incredibly well done, weaving in Irish History and seeming totally realistic.

I always like to separate Fantasy (my favorites) from the other books I read. So here are two lists of 2011 Sonderbooks Standouts in Fiction for Grown-Ups:

Fantasy:
1. Daughter of the Forest, by Juliet Marillier
2. The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss
3. Son of the Shadows, by Juliet Marillier
4. The Snow Queen, by Mercedes Lackey
5. Child of the Prophecy, by Juliet Marillier
6. The Wise Man’s Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss

Other Fiction:
1. State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett
2. Minding Frankie, by Maeve Binchy
3. The Pericles Commission, by Gary Corby
4. I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, by Alan Bradley
5. The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party, by Alexander McCall Smith

Review of Child of the Prophecy, by Juliet Marillier

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

Child of the Prophecy

by Juliet Marillier

TOR Fantasy, 2002. 596 pages.
Starred Review

Child of the Prophecy is the third book in Juliet Marillier’s Sevenwaters Trilogy. She has managed to make each book completely different from the others, each romance totally distinct, and yet all of them equally brilliant.

I expected this third book to be all about the obvious child of the prophecy, Johnny, who was born in the second book and foretold in the first book. Instead, the book is about Fianne, who is the granddaughter of the evil sorceress Oonagh, who enchanted the brothers into swans in the first book. Lady Oonagh still lives, and now she is sending her granddaughter to Sevenwaters to finally get vengeance and destroy the people of Sevenwaters.

However, Fianne is a daughter of Sevenwaters herself. She finds herself loving the family that she meets for the first time. But if she reveals anyone she loves to her grandmother, her grandmother will use that love against her by attacking them.

It was strange to read this book and find yourself rooting for Fianne — even knowing that she was a tool in the hands of the sorceress.

Juliet Marillier brings the book and the trilogy to a wonderful and satisfying conclusion, weaving another magnificent tale in this third book.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/child_of_the_prophecy.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on my own copy of the book, purchased via Amazon.

Review of The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party

Fiction Review, Light Reading, Mystery, Starred Review 0

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party

by Alexander McCall Smith

Pantheon Books, New York, 2011. 213 pages.
Starred Review

I do love the No. One Ladies’ Detective Agency books! This is the twelfth book in the series, and I really do think you will enjoy them more by reading them in order, though I’m sure you would also enjoy them jumping right in.

These books are for people who don’t mind a little author meandering. The fact that Mma Ramotswe is a detective adds some interesting cases, and plot related to that, but mostly the book is about the people and the interesting problems they encounter. Some of the problems always relate to their own personal lives, but they are also tied in with the problems brought to them in their role as detectives.

In The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party, Mma Ramotswe seems to be haunted by the ghost of her beloved tiny white van; Mma Makotsi is finally preparing for her wedding, including finding the perfect shoes; the apprentice Charlie has gotten into bigger trouble than ever; and they have a large and complicated case, involving rich men, a possibly innocent child, and someone cruel enough to harm animals.

The details of the plot are not the point of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books. They are about spending time with dear friends, kind friends who take seriously the bad things out in the world, but also thoroughly enjoy the good things. I happened to read this volume in the hospital, and it was the perfect light pleasant reading, not requiring a lot of thought, but nicely taking my mind off how I was feeling.

I love Mma Ramotswe’s musings on life. Here is one brought on by a remembrance of her father:

“Later, much later, she remembered his words and pondered them. We cannot always stop the things we do not like. She knew now what he meant, of course — that nature had to be left to take its course — but she had realised that there was a far greater truth there too. There were some things that one could stop, or try to stop, but it was a mistake to go through life trying to interfere in things that were beyond your control, or which were going to happen anyway, no matter what you did. A certain amount of acceptance — which was not the same thing as cowardice, or indifference — was necessary or you would spend your life burning up with annoyance and rage.”

And here are her musings on weddings:

“She stood still for a while, thinking about marriage. A wedding was a strange ceremony, she thought, with all those formal words, those solemn vows made by one to another; whereas the real question that should be put to the two people involved was a very simple one. Are you happy with each other? was the only question that should be asked; to which they both should reply, preferably in unison, Yes. Simple questions — and simple answers — were what we needed in life. That was what Mma Ramotswe believed. Yes.”

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/saturday_big_tent_wedding_party.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of The Return of Captain John Emmett, by Elizabeth Speller

Fiction Review, Historical, Mystery 0

The Return of Captain John Emmett

by Elizabeth Speller

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011. 442 pages.

The Return of Captain John Emmett is a mystery set in England a few years after the Great War. Laurence Bartram has returned from the war. His wife died while he was in France, when she was giving birth to their firstborn son. He’s writing a book on old churches, but not making much progress.

“Then, one Tuesday teatime, he was surprised to find a letter, addressed in unfamiliar handwriting, lying on the hall table. Later he came to think of it as the letter. It had been forwarded twice: first from his old Oxford college, then from his former marital home; it was a miracle it had got to him at all.”

The letter is from Mary Emmett, the sister of a boy he knew when he was in school, John Emmett. She writes:

“I wanted to tell you that John died six months ago and, horribly, he shot himself. He seemed to have been luckier than many in the war, but when he came back from France he wouldn’t talk and just sat in his room or went for long walks at night. He said he couldn’t sleep. I don’t think he was writing or reading or any of the other things he used to enjoy. Sometimes he would get in furious rages, even with our mother. Finally he got in a fight with strangers and was arrested.

“Our doctor said that he needed more help than he could provide. He found him a place in a nursing home. John went along with it but then the following winter he ran away. A month later a keeper found his body in a wood over thirty miles away. He didn’t leave a letter. Nothing to explain it. We had thought he was getting better.”

Mary asks Laurence to investigate John’s death, to try to find out why he would do such a thing. His investigation is leisurely and slow, but one thing leads to another, and he begins to get a picture of John Emmett’s war and especially a firing squad where a British officer was executed, and John Emmett was required to be the commanding officer. Recently, quite a few other people who were there that same day have died or been killed. Is there a connection?

Laurence’s well-connected friend Charles is reading golden-age detective fiction during the book, but this book didn’t really evoke those books. With the details about the war experiences, this isn’t really a “cozy” mystery, and the clues aren’t really in place for the reader to spot the denouement.

However, this book was just perfect for the end of my stroke recovery time off. It told an interesting mystery at a leisurely pace, but really evoked the time period after the Great War and let you watch Laurence Bartram taking a new interest in life. With him, you got to know the many different characters who touched John Emmett’s life, and piece together the story of what happened.

I should add that this book is a first novel, and is very impressive as such. I don’t know a whole lot about England between the wars, but the author clearly does, and fills the book with loving detail.

Don’t pick up this book if you’re looking for an action-packed quick read! But if you’re looking for a leisurely and lingering story of people making sense of a difficult time when the world was changing — then this book is a good choice.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/captain_john_emmett.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Son of the Shadows, by Juliet Marillier

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

Son of the Shadows

by Juliet Marillier

Book Two in the Sevenwaters Trilogy
TOR Fantasy, New York, 2001. 590 pages.
Starred Review

I very greatly enjoyed Juliet Marillier’s young adult books, Wildwood Dancing and Cybele’s Secret, but these books about the ancient Irish tuath of Sevenwaters have me completely enthralled.

Son of the Shadows takes up the tale with Fiadan, the daughter of Sorcha, the heroine of Daughter of the Forest. Fiadan and her twin brother Sean are sixteen, and the people of Sevenwaters are feeling uneasy. It seems an old evil is awakening, and they aren’t sure how it will break out.

Sean is training to be the next chief of Sevenwaters, after their uncle Liam. The family still wants to win back their sacred islands from the British family of Northwoods. Sean thinks there is no point in waiting for the prophecy to come true.

Fiadan, like her mother, is a healer, and she’s blessed, or cursed, with The Sight. But Fiadan doesn’t quite fit into the pattern that the Fair Folk seem to be manipulating. In Daughter of the Forest, the Fair Folk did a lot of directing in the background. In this book, Fiadan doesn’t like the requests and commands the Fair Folk give her, and she makes her own choices. But will it mean disaster for her family?

After I read this book, I decided that this series is too good — I am going to order my own copy of the next book, and a copy of this book while I am at it. I know I will want to reread them. Fiadan feels like a precious friend. I want her to succeed! I want to find out what happens to her family next.

Juliet Marillier writes an intricately plotted novel that feels like a beautiful tapestry. There are many places where the characters tell stories, and they are always pertinent to the tale. I like this paragraph where Liadan defends telling tales to the chief of a band of outlaws:

“If what you want is to achieve a victory, what better to inspire your men than a heroic tale, some tale of a battle against great odds, won by skill and courage? If your men are weary or downhearted, what more fit to cheer them than a foolish tale — say, the story of the wee man Iubdan and the plate of porridge, or the farmer who got three wishes and squandered them all? What better to give them hope than a tale of love?”

As for me, I found no better therapy when recovering from a stroke than to read this tale of love and adventure and danger and treachery and loyalty and courage.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/son_of_the_shadows.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of The Pericles Commission, by Gary Corby

Fiction Review, Historical, Mystery, Starred Review 0

The Pericles Commission

by Gary Corby

Minotaur Books, New York, 2010. 335 pages.
Starred Review

The Pericles Commission has one of the best first sentences ever:

“A dead man fell from the sky, landing at my feet with a thud.”

The story that follows is an intriguing murder mystery, set in the political turmoil of ancient Athens establishing democracy.

That was enough information for me to know I wanted to read this book. I was not disappointed. The mystery is satisfying and action-packed. And there’s plenty of historical details to make you believe this could really happen. Our hero, the narrator Nicolaos, even meets a spunky priestess who gets involved in the mystery, and the author gives us reasons in the notes at the end why her role is actually believable.

One thing I loved about the book was how Gary Corby mixed in actual people who lived in Athens at the dawn of democracy, and explained in an Author’s Note how it could all have been true. The dead body in the first sentence belonged to Ephialtes, who really did bring democracy to Athens and really was murdered days later. And there really were political reasons for powerful people to have him killed — which Gary Corby brings to play in his book.

Pericles is the politician who gives Nicolaos a commission to solve the crime, and more and more comes to be at stake for Nicolaos. But my favorite real-life character is the annoying little brother who asks lots and lots of questions: His name is Socrates.

There’s a list of characters in the front, which helps keeping the Greek names straight. Stars beside the names of the actual people show up on more than half of the names in the list. So besides getting an excellent mystery, readers also learn a lot about ancient Athens, in a much more memorable way than a text book.

One thing I do feel bad about: I liked the start of this book so much, I ended up buying a copy. My son has always loved stories of ancient Greece, so I want him to read it. That’s not the bad part. The bad part is that once I finished reading it, it’s taken me months to actually write the review, since it’s not a library book and doesn’t have a due date. I hope to do much better when the sequel, The Ionia Sanction, comes out next month. I’m pre-ordering it today, in fact.

PS: Even worse, I wrote this review last month and didn’t get it posted until now! When I heard that the Ionia Sanction is out (Where’s my copy, Amazon?), I thought it was HIGH time I finally posted this review! I loved this book! Don’t let my slowness make you miss it!

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/pericles_commission.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a book I purchased and gave to my son (but read before he did).

Review of State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett

Contemporary, Fiction Review, General, Literary, Starred Review 0

State of Wonder

by Ann Patchett

Harper, 2011. 353 pages.
Starred Review

I got to hear Ann Patchett read from this book almost a full year ago, when she spoke at the Fall for the Book Festival at George Mason University in Fairfax, sponsored by the Fairfax Library Foundation. It’s been a long time to wait for it to come out! Though it didn’t exactly make me excited to read the book — the passage she read involved an Anaconda on a small boat in the Amazon, and it was portrayed all too vividly. But I did know from that reading that the book would be well-written, vividly described, and definitely exciting!

I was right about all of that. Her writing is so evocative. She deeply pulls you into the lives of her characters — who are definitely individuals, with very particular, very unique lives. But it doesn’t take long reading to feel like you know these people, to completely believe that their lives and complex histories are exactly as described.

The story is rather exotic, taking our character to a remote tribe in the Amazon jungle. The beginning sounds completely normal, but momentous:

“The news of Anders Eckman’s death came by way of Aerogram, a piece of bright blue airmail paper that served as both the stationery and, when folded over and sealed along the edges, the envelope. Who even knew they still made such things? This single sheet had traveled from Brazil to Minnesota to mark the passing of a man, a breath of tissue so insubstantial that only the stamp seemed to anchor it to this world. Mr. Fox had the letter in his hand when he came to the lab to tell Marina the news. When she saw him there at the door she smiled at him and in the light of that smile he faltered.”

Anders shared an office with Marina. They were doctors working for a pharmaceutical company. Anders had gone to Brazil to check on the progress of the elusive Dr. Swenson, developing a valuable miracle drug for their company, exploring the late-life pregnancies of a remote jungle tribe. He was supposed to hurry Dr. Swenson along and ask her to bring most of the work back to Minnesota.

But they got an aerogram that Anders died of a fever. They buried him there.

Naturally, that doesn’t satisfy anybody. So Marina goes to find out how he died and to check on the progress of the work while she’s at it. But Dr. Swenson’s work is so secret, no one even knows where she is, and the first step is to wait in a city outside the jungle until she comes in for supplies. What’s more, Marina has some baggage. Years ago, Dr. Swenson was her advisor in her medical residency. But Marina had an accident in performing a Cesarean section, and transferred out of obstetrics and gynecology to pharmacology. She, along with all the residents, idolized Dr. Swenson. But she understands that nothing but the work is important to Dr. Swenson. So she is not surprised when Dr. Swenson doesn’t even remember her.

And there’s so much more going on. I won’t tell any more, so you can enjoy discovering it all in the delightful way Ann Patchett gives it to you, as if you’re learning it from the people themselves. This book is so richly textured, with layers and layers of meaning.

The story is rather exotic, since it takes you to the Amazon. And, yes, Ann Patchett did go to the Amazon when researching this book. You can tell in details like the way an anaconda smells.

I see in my notes from her talk that she says that when writing “you have to know the characters first — like knowing people.” And her characters are indeed like real people, each with their own unique history and hang-ups and interests. You will be fascinated when these people you’ve come to know get plunged into extraordinary situations.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/state_of_wonder.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.