Review: Hild

Title: Hild

Series: Light of the World #1

Author: Nicola Griffith

Genre: Historical Fiction

Trigger Warnings: Death, injury (major), blood (major), sexual assault (mentions), violence, war, child death, pregnancy, childbirth, parent death (mentions), animal death (mentions), religious bigotry, incest (mentions), sexual content

Back Cover:

Award-winning author Nicola Griffith’s brilliant, lush, sweeping historical novel about the rise of the most powerful woman of the Middle Ages: Hild.

In seventh-century Britain, small kingdoms are merging, frequently and violently. A new religion is coming ashore; the old gods are struggling, their priests worrying. Hild is the king’s youngest niece, and she has a glimmering mind and a natural, noble authority. She will become a fascinating woman and one of the pivotal figures of the Middle Ages: Saint Hilda of Whitby.

But now she has only the powerful curiosity of a bright child, a will of adamant, and a way of seeing the world—of studying nature, of matching cause with effect, of observing her surroundings closely and predicting what will happen next—that can seem uncanny, even supernatural, to those around her.

Her uncle, Edwin of Northumbria, plots to become overking of the Angles, ruthlessly using every tool at his disposal: blood, bribery, belief. Hild establishes a place for herself at his side as the king’s seer. And she is indispensable—unless she should ever lead the king astray. The stakes are life and death: for Hild, for her family, for her loved ones, and for the increasing numbers who seek the protection of the strange girl who can read the world and see the future.

Hild is a young woman at the heart of the violence, subtlety, and mysticism of the early Middle Ages—all of it brilliantly and accurately evoked by Nicola Griffith’s luminous prose. Working from what little historical record is extant, Griffith has brought a beautiful, brutal world to vivid, absorbing life.

Review:

This book has been in the back of my head for a while. I saw it somewhere, possibly a bookstore when it first came out, and the idea stuck in my head. I’m not sure if it was the idea of a fictionalized story of a saint’s childhood, or the idea that it was set in a place and historical period that I know nothing about but is far enough back to be interesting to me, or the concept of a young girl in a very man-centric society gaining power and influence through her own cunning. Or possibly it was the cover, which is not all that spectacular but for some reason grabbed me. Whatever it was, Hild has been lodged in my thoughts for a long time, and when it finally resurfaced again I decided to give it a shot.

It took me a long time to get through this book. Not because it was slow or boring or anything, but because it’s long and dense with detail, and also because I read it as an ebook which is not the best format for me to actually get through books quickly. I didn’t realize before picking it up that it was written by the same person who wrote Spear which I DNF’ed last year. But I think my issue with Spear might have been format-related, because Hild is told in an almost identical style – straightforward and unadorned, heavy on telling over showing – and I enjoyed this book so much.

I normally am not much for historical fiction because I usually find it boring. But a lot of that is because I just don’t find the time periods from the 1700s-ish on to be all that interesting – I much prefer ancient history. The British Isles in the 600s was far enough back to find interesting, and Nicola Griffith clearly did her research. I easily got wrapped up in the day-to-day of life in this world, which was richly detailed, fascinating, and not really what I would have expected. Though it wasn’t a central conflict of the book, there was always a simmering undercurrent of struggling against the land and weather for survival, which I suppose might have been an accurate feeling for the time period.

I know that this is a novel and therefore it’s hard to figure out the line between “accurate to research” and “made up for a better story” and therefore probably not accurate to say that I learned something. But in addition to being absorbed in a good story, I do feel like I learned something. Whether or not the wars and political machinations are true to history, and even if the details weren’t necessarily how things would have happened, I feel like I have a sense of what life, on the whole, might have been like in this time and place. And that was really cool.

I’ve been going on about the world for a while now, and that’s because everything that happens in this book is grounded in the reality of land and geography and the peoples who inhabit it. But what really made this book sing for me is Hild herself. She’s both an interesting, engaging character in her own right and a type of character that I really love to read about. It starts with her as a very small child, suddenly the only heir of a threat to the throne, being guided (or some might say manipulated) by her mother into a very specific role. But she is clever and observant and carves out a place for herself in the seer role. As the reader, I got to see inside her head and her thought processes and I know that everything she “sees” is just a prediction based on other patterns she’s observed. But even from her own point of view she comes across as a strange and uncanny child and young woman, and even though I know there’s no magic involved, I completely understand why others call her a witch. She inhabits the strange space of a child who had to grow up too fast, who is always in danger and must stay three steps ahead of everyone else to protect her life and the lives of those she loves, and who therefore acts and reacts in ways that someone on the outside might describe as strange and fey.

I think what I loved so much about this book, though, is that it covers so much. There’s not particularly a central plot. Hild’s driving goal is to keep herself and her loved ones safe from all the dangers the ever-shifting alliances and machinations of the power players of the day. She claws out as much agency as she can under the circumstances, but the context in which she acts is within the court of Edwin Overking, whose goal is to be king over all the kings of the land that will eventually be known as England. There are conflicts and challenges and small periods with defined goals, but overall it unfolds much as life does – piece by piece, event by event, with little in the way of a structured plot.

But the story opens with Hild as a young child, maybe five, and ends just as she blooms into an adult. And through it all, the world changes around her, and she grows and changes – from a child working hard to fit into the seer role and please the king to a young woman with her own agenda. I loved her grow into her role and then beyond it, pushing the boundaries. I loved her for her in-between-ness, a woman taller than most men, deft with healing herbs and spindle and equally deft with the war dagger she wears at her hip like the king’s fighting men. I loved her for the way she refused to take anything sitting down, determined to understand what had happened and what might happen, taking every opportunity she had to turn the situation her way.

This review is already absurdly long and I haven’t even touched on everything I could say about this book. It’s very long but it’s exactly as long as it needs to be. It is rich and atmospheric and so steeped in something undefinable and deeply engrossing that despite everything happening being completely earthly, there’s a mystic feeling that gives the whole story an air of being some kind of fantasy. I didn’t know going into this that there was a sequel, but there’s space for one and I want it. This book was so good and so much; I want to see where Hild directs the world next.

The Light of the World series:

1. Hild
2. Menewood

Review: Bronze Drum (DNF)

Title: Bronze Drum: A Novel of Sisters and War

Author: Phong Nguyen

Genre: Historical Fiction

Trigger Warnings: Death, blood (mentions), confinement, injury, sexual content (not described), colonialism, suicide attempt

Note: Trigger warnings in DNF books only cover the part I read. There may be triggers further in the book that I did not encounter.

Read To: Page 184

Back Cover:

Gather around, children of Chu Dien, and be brave. For even to listen to the story of the Trung Sisters is, in these troubled times, a dangerous act.

In 40 CE, in the Au Lac region of ancient Vietnam, two daughters of a Vietnamese Lord fill their days training, studying, and trying to stay true to Vietnamese traditions. While Trung Trac is disciplined and wise, always excelling in her duty, Trung Nhi is fierce and free spirited, more concerned with spending time in the gardens and with lovers.

But these sister’s lives—and the lives of their people—are shadowed by the oppressive rule of the Han Chinese. They are forced to adopt Confucian teachings, secure marriages, and pay ever‑increasing taxes. As the peoples’ frustration boils over, the country comes ever closer to the edge of war.

When Trung Trac and Trung Nhi’s father is executed, their world comes crashing down around them. With no men to save them against the Han’s encroaching regime, they must rise and unite the women of Vietnam into an army. Solidifying their status as champions of women and Vietnam, they usher in a period of freedom and independence for their people.

Vivid, lyrical, and filled with adventure, Bronze Drum is a true story of standing up for one’s people, culture, and country that has been passed down through generations of Vietnamese families through oral tradition. Phong Nguyen’s breathtaking novel takes these real women out of legends and celebrates their loves, losses, and resilience in this inspirational story of women’s strength and power even in the face of the greatest obstacles. 

Review:

I struggled with this book from the very beginning. And normally when that happens, I decide to stop fairly early on. It’s part of my whole “only read books that I enjoy” goal – if I’m not enjoying it, why keep reading?

The problem here is that I really wanted to like this book. It’s such a fantastic concept. I had never heard the story of Trung Trac and Trung Nhi before, but a pair of sisters who raise an army of women to drive out the people occupying their country is such a fantastic story. Even better, this is based on real historical people and events! My knowledge of Vietnam is extremely limited, so I was excited to learn more about Vietnamese traditions and values. And not only is Vietnam an awesome setting, this is specifically Bronze Age Vietnam, which, as someone who finds ancient history much more interesting than anything that happened less than a thousand years ago, I found especially appealing. There are so many good ideas and good concepts and things I really, really wanted to love and immerse myself in.

However, it ultimately ended up being disappointing. Some of that was stylistic. The writing was very a folktale, oral tradition type of style – narrative heavy, switching perspectives with no warning, not identifying particular “main characters,” and telling you everything that goes on instead of actually showing you. Though there wasn’t an explicit narrator, there was a strong sense of the story, the setting, and anything that might have made it feel vibrant being mediated and muted through the lens of an omnicient storyteller. The characters and world, though interesting in concept, struggled to rise off the page.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes this storyteller-narrator style could work – and it’s not an inherently bad choice for a story based in oral tradition like this is. It wouldn’t be easy to make it work in a 400-page novel, but it’s possible. In fact, I think it could have worked if it weren’t for this book’s second major problem: Nothing happens.

The back cover establishes that the death of Trung Trac and Trung Nhi’s father is when the story actually gets started. When I stopped reading, he was still alive. Nothing truly interesting happened until 150 pages into the book. The first 184 pages (and possibly more) were more like a slice of life in that time period. Trung Trac and Trung Nhi walked in the gardens, practiced fighting forms, learned from their tutors, fell in love, argued with each other, made occasional stupid decisions, had complex relationships with their parents, and generally just lived as Vietnamese young women under the Han invaders. Again, in itself, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If done right, having such a long period of “setting the scene” can make the rest of the story feel more important and impactful.

The problem is that this book tries to do both. With the storyteller style, the reader isn’t getting a lot of emotional connection with the characters, so it needs to have a stronger, quicker-paced plot to make it work. To keep a long period of setup from getting boring, the reader needs to create strong emotional connections with the characters. But by doing both, the narrator/storyteller style toned down the emotions and kept me from forming a connection with any of these characters that would have engaged me in the minutiae of daily life, and having such a long period of setup left me with no plot or major central conflict to get invested in.

This is a really difficult book to review because I desperately wanted to like it. I really wanted to read this story about warrior sisters in Bronze Age Vietnam! But the telling made two choices that both individually make sense (storyteller style to emphasize its oral origins and long setup to familiarize Western readers with the place and time) that combined to make it dull. Not unreadable, definitely, but not really enjoyable either. I wanted so much to like this. I just didn’t.

Review: The Everlasting

Title: The Everlasting

Author: Katy Simpson Smith

Genre: Contemporary/Historical

Trigger Warnings: Excrement, death, gore, body horror, death of parent, death of child, homophobia, infidelity, sexual content, attempted marital rape, racism, sexism, misogyny, animal death, pregnancy, adultism

Back Cover:

Spanning two thousand years, The Everlasting follows four characters whose struggles resonate across the centuries: an early Christian child martyr; a medieval monk on crypt duty in a church; a Medici princess of Moorish descent; and a contemporary field biologist conducting an illicit affair.

Outsiders to a city layered and dense with history, this quartet separated by time grapple with the physicality of bodies, the necessity for sacrifice, and the power of love to sustain and challenge faith. Their small rebellions are witnessed and provoked by an omniscient, time-traveling Satan who, though incorporeal, nonetheless suffers from a heart in search of repair.

As their dramas unfold amid the brick, marble, and ghosts of Rome, they each must decide what it means to be good. Twelve-year old Prisca defiles the scrolls of her father’s library. Felix, a holy man, watches his friend’s body decay and is reminded of the first boy he loved passionately. Giulia de’ Medici, a beauty with dark skin and limitless wealth, wants to deliver herself from her unborn child. Tom, an American biologist studying the lives of the smallest creatures, cannot pinpoint when his own marriage began to die. As each of these conflicted people struggles with forces they cannot control, their circumstances raise a profound and timeless question at the heart of faith: What is our duty to each other, and what will God forgive?

Review:

This book was on my “Low Standards” list – books that didn’t seem interesting enough to go on my main To Read list, but looked like I might not hate them and could be useful once I started running out of audiobooks I definitely wanted to read. Then I realized I am starting to get low on audiobooks I definitely want to read and I should start working through the Low Standards list as well. I picked this one at random and completely expected to DNF it.

If you asked me, I couldn’t tell you what it’s about. In terms of plot, it’s not really about anything. Hardly anything happens across any of the four stories. But it’s about a whole lot more than plot – life and living, reality, gender, religion, the choices we’re given, the choices we make, and the futility of denying life in favor of the afterlife.

Most of all, though, it’s about bodies and their betrayals – being young, getting old, being female, getting sick, becoming pregnant. And yet it’s also about the joy of being embodied. Our bodies are all we have in this world that is truly, inseparably ours. But it’s a bittersweet joy, as our bodies can betray us in life and we will lose them in death.

I found Tom’s story the weakest of the four. His story is only about the body and its desires and betrayals. He desires a woman who is not his wife but who also doesn’t feel like a choice he can make; he considers his daughter, a body created from his body, and her struggles to accept her own body; he reckons with the betrayal of his body as he is diagnosed with a chronic and degenerative disease. His story was good, but didn’t touch on the themes of gender or faith like the other stories.

Giulia’s story is about the betrayals of her body and gender. Her ambitions and desires are betrayed by her body (her dark skin allows even her inferiors to scorn and disrespect her), her gender (she has no choice but to marry and she isn’t taken seriously in business dealings), and her gendered body (she is pregnant and does not want to be). The choices she is given are limited by her body, and though she resents it, she can only choose.

Felix’s story is about both the body and faith. His job as a monk is to watch the bodies of previously passed monks decay until they are nothing but bones. As he watches the body decay after the soul has left it, he reflects on how his body betrayed him in the past through desire (desire for another boy saw him sent to the monastery) and by aging, and he sees the hypocrisy of people who have given up on life to focus on life after death.

And finally Prisca, too young and female to be treated like a human being, too many desires to accept a lesser role, entranced by faith in a god who promised to take her seriously but let her suffer and die before giving even a taste of the glories he promised.

And throughout all these stories is a fifth character, who never gets her own story but nevertheless provides glimpses through commentary on the other four – Lucifer. Though she only has a few lines here and there, her story was the most emotionally resonant. She seemed to be both a scorned lover and abandoned child, devoted to the point of self-sacrifice and rejected by an unfeeling god. God promised forgiveness and unconditional love to all, but even when Lucifer begged on bloody knees, he denied it to her. And though she hates him, she still loves him, and this contradiction tears at her.

This Lucifer tempts us from god’s path because she loves us. God does not truly love, but would gladly see us deny ourselves, suffer, and die without ever tasting happiness. Lucifer would have us seize the pleasures of our bodies and revel in them. She would not see us suffer at the whim of a god who cannot love.

Did I like this book? I don’t know, but I felt it.

Review: The Red Tent (DNF)

Title: The Red Tent

Author: Anita Diamant

Genre: Historical Fiction

Trigger Warnings: Death of children, death in childbirth, menstruation, masturbation, pedophilia, rape mention

Read To: 8%

Back Cover:

Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters of the Book of Genesis that are about her father, Jacob, and his dozen sons. Told in Dinah’s voice, this novel reveals the traditions and turmoils of ancient womanhood–the world of the red tent. It begins with the story of her mothers–Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah–the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give her gifts that sustain her through a hard-working youth, a calling to midwifery, and a new home in a foreign land. Dinah’s story reaches out from a remarkable period of early history and creates an intimate connection with the past. Deeply affecting, The Red Tent combines rich storytelling with a valuable achievement in modern fiction: a new view of biblical women’s society.

Review:

This type of book isn’t normally my thing. It came onto my radar via a glowing recommendation from my mother-in-law, whose book recommentations are usually good, and I was intrigued by the idea of exploring women’s society in a biblical setting and expanding the story of Dinah, whose role in the bible was “raped to give her brothers an excuse to murder a whole city.” So I was willing to give it a chance.

In the prologue, Dinah as the narrator explains that the way to know a woman is to know her mother, and then begins telling the story of her mothers, the four wives of Jacob. The book portrayed Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah as all daughters of the same father, even though I thought in the bible Leah and Rachel were the daughters and Zilpah and Bilhah were their servants. But that’s a minor quibble.

It’s heavy on the exposition and descriptions and light on the dialogue and characters doing things, but I didn’t mind that too much. It could have been a conscious choice to have Dinah narrating all these dtails. And personally I found the worship practices for the household gods really interesting. What put me off was how weirdly sexual the book was, considering that Jacob was definitely an adult and the oldest of the four girls was fifteen-ish (and I think the youngest was around eight).

At first, it wasn’t awful. Rachel and Leah were both smitten by Jacob, a handsome older guy, and having been both twelve-ish and fifteen-ish and found someone way too old for me attractive, I can understand that. Jacob was also smitten with the gorgeous Rachel (a little weird considering she hasn’t even had her first period yet, but okay) and seems to admire the strength of Leah. Where I really started to get uncomfortable was when Jacob started to have sexual dreams about all four girls (remember, the youngest is around eight or ten years old right now) and one of the girls saw him masturbating. That’s where I noped out.

It’s very possible it could have gotten better. I hadn’t even gotten to the point where Dinah herself came into the story. And I do feel a little bad about stopping only 8% in. But one of my resolutions for my own reading is to not read books I don’t want to read and not continue reading books I’m not interested in.

Review: Gentlemen of the Road

Title: Gentlemen of the Road

Author: Michael Chabon

Genre: Historical Fiction

Trigger Warnings: Blood, death, gore, rape, consensual sex, torture (mentions), animal death (mentions), urination, misogyny and violence against women, mild racism

Back Cover:

They’re an odd pair, to be sure: pale, rail-thin, black-clad Zelikman, a moody, itinerant physician fond of jaunty headgear, and ex-soldier Amram, a gray-haired giant of a man as quick with a razor-tongued witticism as with a sharpened battle-ax. Brothers under the skin, comrades in arms, they make their rootless way through the Caucasus Mountains, circa a.d. 950, living as they please and surviving however they can – as blades and thieves for hire and as practiced bamboozlers, cheerfully separating the gullible from their money. But when they are dragooned into service as escorts and defenders to a prince of the Khazar Empire, they soon find themselves the half-willing generals in a full-scale revolution – on a road paved with warriors and whores, evil emperors and extraordinary elephants, secrets, swordplay, and such stuff as the grandest adventures are made of.

Review:

This is a very short book. I don’t know how many pages it has (The StoryGraph says 204, but they’re not always accurate with page counts), but the unabridged audiobook was just over four hours long. (For context, most audiobooks are in the 10-14 hour range.) I listened to it in one go between starting work and my lunch break.

Audio may not have been the best format to read, since I couldn’t keep most of the names straight. I was about halfway through the book before I realized that one of the names being thrown around was not a third adventurer who never said anything, but in fact the name of Zelikman’s horse.

It was an interesting story. Zelikman and Amram are “gentlemen of the road” – thieves, con men, and mercenaries for hire as the opportunity presents, traveling across the Khazar Empire and accidentally getting wrapped up in trying to help the rightful heir to the empire get back on the throne. From what I can tell from a brief look through Wikipedia, it was pretty historically accurate, and having the backdrop of a great Jewish empire while the two main characters fought, survived, and maintained a strong friendship was really cool. The best way I can describe the mood of this book is to compare it to The Walking Drum – except, you know, actually good.

I did enjoy the story, and despite having a hard time keeping track of the names I followed the plot pretty well. However, I think I missed a lot of details reading it as an audiobook, so I might come back to it later as a physical book and try to catch what I missed. It would be worth it.

Review: Pride of Baghdad

Title: Pride of Baghdad

Author: Brian K. Vaughan (writer), Niko Henrichon (artist)

Genre: Historical Fiction

Trigger Warnings: Blood, gore, death, animal death, war, bombings, death by gun, rape

Back Cover:

In the spring of 2003, a pride of lions escaped from the Baghdad zoo during an American bombing raid. Lost and confused, hungry but finally free, the four lions roamed the decimated streets of Baghdad in a desperate struggle for their lives. In documenting the plight of the lions, PRIDE OF BAGHDAD raises questions about the true meaning of liberation – can it be given or is it earned only through self-determination and sacrifice? And in the end, is it truly better to die free than to live life in captivity?

Based on a true story, Vaughan and artist Niko Henrichon have created a unique and heartbreaking window into the nature of life during wartime, illuminating this struggle as only the graphic novel can.

Review:

My husband has been pestering me to read this for a long time (I think a couple years at this point). I finally sat down and read it. It took me about half an hour, and I think this text conversation between my husband and I sums it up pretty well.

This is a sad book. A very sad book. If you do not want to see animals die this is not your book. If you do not want to cry or at least feel very much like crying this is not your book. It’s a good story but that ending will make you sob.

This graphic novel is based on a true story of four lions who escaped the Baghdad Zoo when it was bombed. The four lions (two lionesses, one male lion, and a cub) wander the bombed streets of Baghdad, seeing the horrors of humans at war without comprehending. Somehow that makes it even sadder.

This is a good book. The artwork was good (I was not a huge fan of how the artist drew the lions’ faces, but that’s a minor personal quibble), the story was good, I got a solid emotional connection to these lions, it makes interesting points about the nature of freedom and the horrors of war. Just … make sure you know going in that there are no happy endings here.

Review: Sarah, Son of God

Title: Sarah, Son of God

Author: Justine Saracen

Genre: Historical

Trigger Warnings: Transphobia, outdated transgender terminology, sexual assault, drunk driving, death (mention), blood (mention)

Back Cover:

Against her better judgment, Professor Joanna Valois takes on sexually undefinable Sara Falier as her assistant on a trip to Venice. The object of their research is a sixteenth century heretical book and the truth about the woman condemned to death for printing it. The book, a translation of an ancient codex not only shattered the lives of nearly everyone who touched it but, 400 years later, could still bring half the world to its knees.

Like nesting dolls, this story within a story within a story raises the question as to whether gender-breaking has not only challenged the boundaries of love and sexual desire, but altered the course of history.

Review:

I’m not normally into historical fiction, but I just couldn’t get over how much I love the title of this book. Especially with the way the description strongly hints at it being queer, I was actually pretty excited for this one.

Joanna is the “main character,” but she kind of receeds to the background a little bit. She’s a professor, a lesbian, and a bit bland all things considered. She’s not a passive character – it’s her research trip, after all, she’s making decisions and driving the research – but she still serves more as a vessel to make the story happen than as a vivid character to enjoy.

Sara does seem less bland, but that’s purely because of her trans-ness, which is her main distinguishing characteristic. She starts off the story as a gender-nonconforming man named Tadzio who is considered for the research trip because Joanna’s original translator has died and he’s a native speaker of a particular Italian dialect she needs. Tadzio gets rejected for the trip because Italy in the 70s (this book is set in the 70s) would not have approved of his gender-nonconformingness, but when Joanna discoveres Tadzio can become Sara, a woman who completely passes for female, Sara gets invited on the trip. Sara passes very well and is good at charming men, and that and her transness makes up everything interesting about Sara.

The story starts with a prologue about the woman who originally published the heretical book, which was interesting and fills in the beginning of the story that Joanna and Sara learn about. Then it has a bit about Tadzio getting arrested during the Stonewall riots, which isn’t bad but is completely irrelevant to anything else that happens. Most of the story is Joanna and Sara going around Venice, tracking down bits of the story behind this book and what happened to it. The Venitian atmosphere in the book is good, and the plot is solid.

The part where my suspension of disbelief falls apart, though, is when we get to read the actual text of the heretical book, which is a translation of a supposedly “original” manuscript, and it’s really not compelling enough for me to believe that it shook the foundations of so many people’s faith. This could be because I’m just coming off reading Misquoting Jesus, which is all about how incredibly unreliable these kinds of manuscripts are, but I found it difficult to believe that A, this manuscript was 100% genuine, and B, just reading it would cause people to question their faith so hard. I’ve shown die-hard Christians actual scientific facts and they still preferred to reject them in favor of their faith, I can’t believe reading one outlandish manuscript would shake anyone’s faith.

Also, this is possibly a spoiler? But if, like me, you were hoping the title pointed to the manuscript saying Jesus was trans, that’s not it. I was disappointed, but there is no trans Jesus in this book.

Overall, this book goes solidly in the “good” range. It wasn’t spectactular, and I found the heretical book itself to be fairly disappointing, but it was good. I enjoyed the read, Venice as a setting was fantastic, and besides the suspension of disbelief problem, it was a pretty good read.

Review: Jewel of the Thames

Title: Jewel of the Thames

Series: A Portia Adams Adventure #1

Author: Angela Misri

Genre: Historical/Mystery

Back Cover:

There’s a new detective at 221 Baker Street.

Nineteen-year-old Portia Adams has always been inquisitive. There’s nothing she likes better than working her way through a mystery. When her mother dies, Portia is left in the guardianship of the extravagant Mrs. Jones. Portia is promptly whisked from Toronto to London by her guardian, where she discovers that she has inherited 221 Baker Street — the former offices of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

Portia settles into her new home and gets to know her downstairs tenants, including the handsome and charming Brian Dawes. She also finds herself entangled in three cases: the first one involving stolen jewelry, the second one a sick judge and the final case revolving around a kidnapped child. But the greatest mystery of all is her own. How did she come to inherit this townhouse? And why did her mother keep her heritage from her? Portia has a feeling Mrs. Jones knows more than she is letting on. In fact, she thinks her new guardian may be the biggest clue of all.

Review:

I’m a huge Sherlock Holmes fan (Arthur Conan Doyle’s books, the movies with Robert Downey Jr., the BBC TV show …). So when an email appeared in my inbox saying “There’s a new detective at 221B Baker Street,” I decided to say yes before I even read anything about the book.

Portia was completely enjoyable. She was a bookish introvert like me, but with awesome deductive skills. She wasn’t quite as good at deductions (or disguises) as Sherlock, but she’s young. I’m sure she’ll get there.

There were also some good minor characters, like Portia’s guardian, Mrs. Jones, who has a lot of interesting secrets. And Constable Brian Dawes, whose parents live below Portia (and who I’m thinking may eventually play Watson to Portia’s Holmes).

The mysteries were very much like something I’d imagine Doyle would write – a little less complicated, perhaps, but still great. They were engrossing and fun, and just like Doyle’s plots, I had a hard time guessing the culprit. Angela Misri certainly did her research, and just like a good Sherlock Holmes mystery, I feel like I learned something while being entertained.

In my opinion, the writing was what really made the book. It read like an old classic book – in a good way. It perfectly fit the subject and tone and added the finishing touches to a very Sherlock-esque story.

The Jewel of the Thames was a fun mystery that definately felt like a Sherlock Homes adventure. It was a good start to a series, and I’m looking forward to seeing how Portia’s skills develop in further books.

I received a free review copy of The Jewel of the Thames from the publisher. Their generosity in no way influenced, or sought to influence, this review.

The Portia Adams Adventures series:

1. The Jewel of the Thames
2. Thrice Burned
3. No Matter How Improbable

Review: War Horse

Title: War Horse

Author: Michael Morpurgo

Genre: Historical

Back Cover:

Joey has lived his life as a farm horse, cared for by the loving Albert. But when Albert’s father, who never really liked Joey anyway, needs money, he sells Joey to the army fighting World War I. Ripped away from everything he knew, Joey finds himself holding various positions as a war horse. Will he ever see Albert again?

Review:

I’d seen the movie War Horse, and it was okay. But I had no intention of reading the book until it was a book club pick. Then I decided, what the heck. It couldn’t be as bad as some of the book club’s selections – after all, the movie wasn’t bad.

Joey was…well, he was a horse. It’s hard to discuss a horse main character. He had little emotion, and no thinking besides what was required to tell the story.

The main concept of the book is a horse’s perspective on a series of owners in the midst of World War I. Joey was trying to survive the war – I was going to say to find Albert again, but he was such a laid-back horse, he didn’t even try to do anything. He just obeyed and did what was asked of him.

The movie was almost exactly like the book. Only, in my opinion, it was better – it was shorter, and the battle scenes lent themselves well to the screen. I think watching the movie first decreased my enjoyment of the book, since they were so close, I already knew the plot.

War Horse wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good, either, but it wasn’t bad. Overall, not my favorite, but there have been worse book club picks.

Review: The Walking Drum

Image from Shonari

Title: The Walking Drum

Author: Louis L’Amour

Genre: Historical

Back Cover:

Warrior, lover, and scholar, Mathurin Kerbouchard is a daring seeker of knowledge and fortune bound on a journey of enormous challenge, danger and revenge. Across Europe, the Russian steppes and through the Byzantine wonder of Constantinople, gateway to Asia, Kerbouchard is thrust into the heart of the treacheries, passions, violence and dazzling wonders of a magnificent time. From castle to slave gallery, from sword-racked battlefields to a princess’s secret chamber, and ultimately, to the impregnable fortress of the Valley of Assassins, Kerbouchard is on a powerful adventure through an ancient world.

Review:

I had not planned on reading this book. Louis L’Amour writes westerns, after all. But my dad told me that The Walking Drum wasn’t a western, and he liked it. My father and I have similar tastes in books (sometimes), so I decided to give it a try.

Unfortunately, I didn’t end up finishing it.

Mathurin Kerbouchard wasn’t exactly a bad main character. He was brave and daring and chivalrous, and loved to learn. My main problem with him was his problem with women.

It seemed that every five chapters or so, Kerbouchard fell “in love” with a new woman. They were together for a few chapters. Then they separated for one reason or another. Next thing I know, he’s come across another woman.

And for the most part, it seemed his romances were the main plot. Sure, I knew he wanted to find his father and get revenge on the guy who killed his mother. But he got his revenge before the halfway point, and at page 250, where I gave up, his quest for his father had just started in earnest. Page 250 was just over halfway through the book.

One thing I did like was the historical details. For the most part, they were worked into the story so it didn’t feel like the author was mentioning facts for the sake of mentioning facts. And they were actually interesting. I’d never really thought about this time period – I believe it was second-century Europe – before.

But overall, The Walking Drum was a super-long book with hardly any plot. I am not a fan.