Review of Enchantment, by Orson Scott Card

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Romance 0
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Enchantment
by Orson Scott Card

Reviewed January 10, 2008.
Del Rey Books (Random House), New York, 1999. 419 pages.
Starred Review.
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2008: #1, Fantasy Fiction

I didn’t have to consider for a second how highly to rate this book. Enchantment was the best book I had read in a very long time.

What if Sleeping Beauty woke up today? Orson Scott Card gives a possible answer to that question. He weaves in Russian fairy tales, a Russian Jewish family coming to America, and ancient local gods of Russia. In the process, he crafts a beautiful love story which is at once thought-provoking, suspenseful, and utterly captivating.

The book opens when Ivan Smetski’s parents tell him that he is really a Jew named Itzak Shlomo. The time is right for the family to declare who they are and leave Russia. Before they leave, Ivan discovers a strange place in the woods. He thinks he sees the face of a beautiful woman, asleep, covered with leaves. Then something moves in the leaves near her and comes straight toward him. He runs in terror.

As an adult, Ivan goes back to Russia. He thinks that memory must have just been his vivid imagination. Nonetheless, he feels compelled to visit the place. When the monster moves in the leaves, this time he stands his ground.

The story that follows is as beautiful as the fairy tales it calls to mind, but gives us more details. He shows us that it’s not so easy to deal with a Princess when you’re only a common young man. He comes up against such formidable figures as Baba Yaga and the Bear god of Russia. I especially enjoy learning the reason why Baba Yaga has a house on chicken legs that can move around the country.

One reason I love this story is that I once tried to write a book based on the same idea—Sleeping Beauty waking up today. The idea seemed good, but the logistics bogged me down. How would she get papers to deal with the modern world? How would she cope with the sheer weight of all her family and friends being dead? How would she deal with modern life? How would she handle the language?

Orson Scott Card takes care of every obstacle I found and makes it look easy. Ivan is uniquely prepared to deal with a girl from old Russia. Like his father, he is a student of ancient Russian languages. Instead of treating this like a coincidence, we feel that Ivan was specially chosen for this task.

I won’t give away the other ways the author turns obstacles into features of the story. His love story is also wonderful. The two don’t like each other at first, but we can see their attitudes gradually changing, as each discovers the other’s true worth.

This is the sort of book I will want to read again every few years. A real treasure.

This review is posted on the main site at

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/enchantment.html

Review of The Canterbury Papers, by Judith Koll Healey

Fiction Review, Historical, Mystery, Romance, Stand-outs 0
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The Canterbury Papers 

A Novel of Suspense

by Judith Koll Healey

Reviewed December 17, 2006.
William Morrow, New York, 2004. 353 pages.
Starred Review.
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2007: #1, Romance Fiction

I loved this book! The subtitle says it’s a novel of suspense, but it’s also a historical mystery tale with romance, intrigue, and a smart, capable heroine.

The book features an actual historical character, Alaïs Capet, the daughter of Louis VII and his second wife, Constance of Castile. At a very young age, Alaïs and her sister Marguerite were sent to England to live with the court of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, the first wife of Louis VII.

Alaïs and Marguerite were betrothed to Henry II’s sons, Alaïs to Richard the Lionheart, and Marguerite to Henry Court Mantel. However, when Eleanor lost favor with Henry for plotting with her sons against him, he had her imprisoned in a tower and took Alaïs as his mistress. She never married Richard.

The book opens many years later. Richard and Henry are both dead and the younger brother John is ruling England, but doesn’t have a firm hold on the throne. Eleanor sends Alaïs to Canterbury to recover some letters which might hurt John’s power. Eleanor hints that she can give Alaïs information about a secret near to her heart, a secret she long thought was dead and buried.

The person in charge of Canterbury, William of Caen, once also lived in the court of Henry and Eleanor. He took his lessons with the royal children, including Alaïs, and was tormented by the princes, because he was their father’s favorite. Alaïs finds him quite changed since she last saw him. He also seems to know more than he lets on.

Alaïs is kidnapped just before she is able to recover the letters. She’s held in the same tower where Eleanor was once imprisoned. Now King John wants information from her—information she doesn’t have.

This story is full of action, suspense, and romance, and is highly enjoyable reading. I wouldn’t call it chick lit, because the historical background and political intrigue give it more weight than your typical light mystery. This is Judith Koll Healey’s first novel, but I hope there will be many, many more to follow!

This review is on the main site at www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/canterburypapers.html

 

Review of High Priestess, by David Skibbins

Fiction Review, Mystery 0
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High Priestess
by David Skibbins

Reviewed September 18, 2007.
Thomas Dunne Books (St. Martin’s Minotaur), New York, 2006. 280 pages.

I so enjoyed David Skibbins’ first book, Eight of Swords, I quickly snapped up his second Tarot Card Mystery.

This book also features the extremely quirky reluctant detective Warren Ritter. Even though he’s used to running from trouble or suspicion or intimacy, he’s sticking around Berkeley because of the new love in his life.

In this book, we again find Warren riding the heights and depths of his manic-depressive condition, and again getting unjustly suspected by the police. Like the first book, the story is fun, absorbing, and unpredictable. We learn about a series of mysterious deaths which might all be accidents. Or are they a determined pattern, with Warren’s old girlfriend on target to be the next victim?

I didn’t particularly like it that Warren was asked to investigate these deaths by the leader of “The Church of the Arising Night,” worshippers of Satan. The book includes a plausible sounding plea to join this cult, as well as the character of a sinister and threatening Christian minister. So if that would bother you in a novel, you should avoid this book.

As for me, I didn’t particularly like those details, but it’s not as if they suggest that all Christians are like this minister, or that joining the Church of Satan is a good idea. (Warren isn’t interested.) I wanted to know what happened to the character, so I read on. With all his quirks and weaknesses and shadowy past, he’s someone I find myself rooting for.

This review is on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/high_priestess.html

Review of The Oxford Murders, by Guillermo Martinez

Fiction Review, Mathematical, Mystery 0
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The Oxford Murders
by Guillermo Martinez
translated by Sonia Soto

Reviewed September 17, 2007.
MacAdam/Cage, San Francisco, 2005. 197 pages.

This delightfully philosophical murder mystery was written by a man from Buenos Aires with a PhD in Mathematics. Of course I liked it!

The character telling the story is a PhD student from Argentina studying at Oxford. He’s staying in an apartment owned by the widow of a great mathematician. One day, soon after he arrived at Oxford, he encounters an eminent logician and together they discover the old woman dead, murdered.

The murderer has left a note, apparently a challenge to Dr. Seldom, the logician. The note refers to the murder as the first of a series, and includes a symbol, a circle. Sure enough, there’s a second murder, along with the symbol of a fish, drawn from two curved lines.

Part of the fun is this book is the mathematical aspects of the case. Dr. Seldom explains that they still don’t have enough information to determine the next symbol in the series. In fact, they can never be absolutely sure they have found what the murderer is thinking of. But perhaps if they can figure out the next item in the series, they can solve the crime.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story, a good mysterious puzzle, as well as some interesting things to think about.

This review is on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/oxford_murders.html

Review of Rise and Shine, by Anna Quindlen

Contemporary, Fiction Review 0
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Rise and Shine
by Anna Quindlen

Reviewed September 14, 2007.
Random House, New York, 2006. 269 pages.

I like Anna Quindlen’s writing. She creates depth, windows into people’s souls.

This book is the story of Bridget Fitzmaurice, a social worker in Manhattan, and her older sister Meghan, one of the most recognized people on TV, the host of Rise and Shine, a network’s morning show.

When Meghan lets something slip on the air that she shouldn’t have, it looks like her career is over. When Bridget learns about the other pressures in Meghan’s life behind that, she wonders if she really knew her sister.

Will any of their lives ever be the same again? Well, no. We all grow and change. This novel looks at a window of time when the lives in one family change dramatically. Perhaps partly I liked it because Bridget is almost exactly the same age as me—and it’s a time of change for me, too.

If someone told me the plot of this novel, I’m not sure I would have thought I’d like it. But in Anna Quindlen’s hands, it’s a treasure. You enjoy getting to know these people.

This review is on the main site at:

http://sonderbooks.com/Fiction/rise_and_shine.html

Review of The Little Lady Agency, by Hester Browne

Chick Lit, Fiction Review, Romance 0
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The Little Lady Agency
by Hester Browne

Reviewed August 18, 2007.
Viking, New York, 2006. 378 pages.

About a week after I finished The Cinderella Pact, by Sarah Strohmeyer, I found myself yearning for another dose of feel-good, light-hearted chick lit. The Little Lady Agency was the perfect choice.

Like The Cinderella Pact, The Little Lady Agency involves a woman with a secret identity. In this case, Melissa Romney-Jones runs The Little Lady Agency to help those men who don’t have their own “little lady” to do things like pick out gifts, plan a party, or play a jealous ex-girlfriend to make breaking up simpler.

Melissa didn’t originally plan on this career choice, but after she completely organizes the estate agency where she works, the agency is bought by an American firm, and they have to “let her go.” She refuses to ask for money from her rich MP father, since he’s still hounding her for the money he loaned to her to invest in a deadbeat boyfriend’s business—before he ran off.

In the interests of discretion, Melissa buys a blonde wig and runs her agency as Honey Blennerheskitt. Although Melissa herself is extremely capable, she finds that Honey is outspoken and charming and freely stands up for herself. Honey knows she is attractive and dresses to please. Honey wouldn’t let her family take advantage of her skills by planning her sister’s wedding for no compensation, as Melissa does.

Melissa’s favorite client ends up being Jonathan Riley, the new American manager of Melissa’s former office. He was recently divorced and wants Honey to pose as his girlfriend so that people will stop trying to set him up and stop asking him how he’s holding up. He seems to like Honey, but he doesn’t even know the real Melissa. And is it possible to let a relationship that begins as business change into something else?

This book is lots of fun, heart-warming, and made me smile. The characters have depth and you can’t help but like them (or like to hate them, such as Melissa’s father). Definitely a cheering book.

The Fourth Bear, by Jasper Fforde

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Humorous, Mystery 0
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The Fourth Bear
by Jasper Fforde

Reviewed August 7, 2007.
Viking, New York, 2006. 378 pages.

Jasper Fforde’s books are impossible to satisfactorily classify. Perhaps I should start a new category for his books only. Let’s see—I could call it “humor for clever readers” or “fantasy-sci-fi-mystery-humor-with literary allusions.” I took the easy way out by calling the Thursday Next books “science fiction,” since they do involve alternate universes, and I called the first of the Nursery Crime series “mystery,” since it is a detective story. However, the fact that the detective is a character in a nursery rhyme investigating such people as the Gingerbreadman and Goldilocks and the Quangle-Wangle, does make it an extremely atypical detective story.

I could call this fantasy, but it’s very different from what people expect from that category. So I’ll stick with “mystery,” which scratches the surface of what this book is about.

In The Fourth Bear, the second book in the Nursery Crime series, Jack Spratt investigates the disappearance of Goldilocks. He’s currently in trouble for letting the wolf eat Red Riding Hood and her grandmother. Although they were saved by a woodsman, they’re traumatized and won’t speak.

Jack’s boss is after him to get a psychiatric evaluation and some time resting. What Jack’s critics don’t realize is that the wolf also ate Jack. He puts his life on the line, but doesn’t think he needs therapy. He’s used to such bizarre circumstances—They’re all in a day’s work. Besides, how can he rest when that homicidal maniac, the Gingerbreadman, has escaped from the asylum?

There’s great fun in this book, though you do have to tolerate a few groaners, like a waiter who seems familiar in the Déjà vu Hotel. In the Thursday Next books, we saw what it’s like to be in books from the characters’ perspectives, so that prepared me for passages like this one:

Jack and his partner Mary Mary had just been discussing at great length and alliteration the fact that “Pippa Piper picked Peck over Pickle or Pepper.” The text reads:

There was a pause.

“It seems a very laborious setup for a pretty lame joke, doesn’t it?” mused Jack.

“Yes,” agreed Mary, shaking her head sadly. “I really don’t know how he gets away with it.”

Well, Jasper Fforde, the man who successfully used eleven hads in a row in The Well of Lost Plots, has gotten away with it again!

Review of North by Northanger, by Carrie Bebris

Austenalia, Fiction Review, Mystery 0
North by Northanger

(Or, The Shades of Pemberley)

by Carrie Bebris

Reviewed July 5, 2007.
Forge, New York, 2006. 318 pages.

This is the third “Mr. and Mrs. Darcy” mystery by Carrie Bebris, extending the story begun by Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice. This one was by far my favorite. In this book, Elizabeth is expecting a child, and she finds a letter from Mr. Darcy’s mother, who died giving birth to Mr. Darcy’s sister Georgiana.

This book is well done. We get a puzzling mystery, where Mr. Darcy himself is accused of stealing diamonds. We get a perplexing experience at Northanger Abbey and even a hidden treasure. We meet again some characters from Jane Austen’s book, Northanger Abbey.

But most fascinating of all is getting to know the earlier Mrs. Darcy through her letters, especially those exchanged with Mrs. Tilney, the mother of the hero of Northanger Abbey. It’s fun to think how Elizabeth would have been affected by the reputation of her predecessor—but then to see her come to peace with that memory as she learns the heart of her husband’s mother.

This book gives you the chance to spend more time with two delightful people. You get to experience two happy people in love, facing the birth of a child at a time when giving birth could be dangerous, with perplexing difficulties to untangle as well.

The first two books in the series went a little too far with supernatural explanations of puzzling events for my taste. But this book had only a hint of such things, and they added atmosphere with the loving spirit of the former Mrs. Darcy.

Thanks to my friend Stephanie for urging me to try the third book in the series!