The Winter Palace by Eva Stachniak

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Summary from GoodReads:

Her name is Barbara—in Russian, Varvara. Nimble-witted and attentive, she’s allowed into the employ of the Empress Elizabeth, amid the glitter and cruelty of the world’s most eminent court. Under the tutelage of Count Bestuzhev, Chancellor and spymaster, Varvara will be educated in skills from lock picking to lovemaking, learning above all else to listen—and to wait for opportunity. That opportunity arrives in a slender young princess from Zerbst named Sophie, a playful teenager destined to become the indomitable Catherine the Great. Sophie’s destiny at court is to marry the Empress’s nephew, but she has other, loftier, more dangerous ambitions, and she proves to be more guileful than she first appears.

What Sophie needs is an insider at court, a loyal pair of eyes and ears who knows the traps, the conspiracies, and the treacheries that surround her. Varvara will become Sophie’s confidante—and together the two young women will rise to the pinnacle of absolute power.

My Review:

This is quite the story.

I’m always a big fan of books about royals which are told from the point of view of someone who’s been placed near them. While it’s interesting if the author can capture the actual royal voice, more often than not I find that the technique used by Stachniak in The Winter Palace is a better one to use.

So I knew little to nothing about Catherine the Great before picking up this book – as most of my reading about Kings and Queens has been focused on England – but holy cow, I think now I’ll be checking more into Russian history. I was thoroughly charmed by this book and caught up in so much drama – because it had it in abundance!

Stachniak’s writing is strong, and she really creates the scene well. I felt as if I was being whisked away, and along with Sophia, felt so much sympathy for Varvara – while also SO much respect for Elizabeth, because that Queen, I’m tellin’ ya, she’s got a story as well.

Highly recommend for historical fiction fans.

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Simple Pleasures Book Blog

Jenn’s Bookshelves

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

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Summary from GoodReads:

Of all the contenders for the title of The Great American Novel, none has a better claim than The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Intended at first as a simple story of a boy’s adventures in the Mississippi Valley-a sequel to Tom Sawyer-the book grew and matured under Twain’s hand into a work of immeasurable richness and complexity. More than a century after its publication, the critical debate over the symbolic significance of Huck’s and Jim’s voyage is still fresh, and it remains a major work that can be enjoyed at many levels: as an incomparable adventure story and as a classic of American humor.

My Review:

It’s always daunting, isn’t it, to review a classic that so many people have read?

We discussed Huck Finn in my American Lit class this semester, and overall there really was quite a bit to discuss, despite the story being a very well-known one (at least to me). There is more to this book than than a simple story of a boy and a man floating down the river in a raft.

What I loved about this reading of Huck Finn is that we were also to read Toni Morrison’s Introduction to it. It was through this Introduction that I was able to see the story in a completely new light – and to understand just what was so “wonderfully troubling” about it.

Morrison talks a lot about silence in the book – the silence in those moments of floating down the river, the silence with regard to learning much of anything about Jim’s family, the silence with which Huck treats his friendship with Tom. Then there’s the silence of Jim toward Huck – why did he fail to disclose who that man was under the cloth?

This is an extraordinarily troubling book, but yes.. a wonderful one as well. It’s enlightening – it shows how hard the struggle was to accept the idea that a human is a human, no matter his or her skin color. It’s educational, it reminds us of where we’ve come from in an effort to remind us of where we should not return. It’s captured history through the dialect of Jim. It’s a look at two individuals escaping slavery – Jim the actual slavery, and Huck, escaping abuse at the hand of his father.

I always recommend these books. Tom Sawyer is more suited to younger audiences (although I personally find Tom to be a scoundrel), but Huck Finn is a must read for teenagers and adults.

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Blatant Biblioholic

Good Books and Good Wine

The Shining by Stephen King

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Summary from GoodReads:

Danny is only five years old, but he is a ‘shiner’, aglow with psychic voltage. When his father becomes caretaker of an old hotel, his visions grow out of control. Cut off by blizzards, the hotel seems to develop an evil force, and who are the mysterious guests in the supposedly empty hotel?

My Review:

Here’s the thing about Stephen King.

… He scares the bejeezus out of me.

Seriously. So, I’m going to tell you a story about picking this book up. No joke at all. This is what happened.

I picked up The Shining around 9pm at night. I wanted to read, it was there, it needed to be read. But I’d heard horrors about Anthony Hopkins and that hotel in Colorado and.. I wanted to be able to sleep. So I told myself – I’ll read ’til it gets scary.

150 pages later, I thought.. huh, this isn’t that bad. I’ll keep reading…

Then my mind began to process everything coming through it and OH MY GOSH I COULD NOT CLOSE MY EYES.

I fully expected lots of gore, lots of slashing madness, but what I didn’t expect was the psychological impact something like a shaking elevator, or locking someone in a walk-in fridge would do to me. My hands were SHAKING as I read the book, but.. to be honest, it was a lot of fun and I can’t wait to muster the courage to dive into my next Stephen King adventure – “It”.

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The Librarian Reads

The Last Storyteller by Frank Delaney

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Summary from GoodReads:

Brimming with fascinating Irish history, daring intrigue, and the drama of legendary love, The Last Storyteller is an unforgettable novel as richly textured and inspiring as Ireland itself.

My Review:

Here’s the thing about Frank Delaney – when that blurb on sites like GoodReads and Amazon refer to him as “unparalleled” when it comes to Irish History, they aren’t exaggerating.

Delaney is the real deal.

I’ve loved this series ever since reading the first page about Ben and Venetia in Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show. I was drawn in by the whimsical, perfectly illustrated cover of that book, and since then I have been wooed and won over by the lyricism of Delany’s storytelling ability.

There are times when a writing is so powerful you can hear the accent, or the coloring of the speech, and it is that way with this book. When Delaney talks about the old storytellers, when he describes the way the voice sounds, the rising and falling of the rhythms, I feel transported, and am enchanted right along with the characters who, enviably, get to hear more than I do.

That’s right, I said enviably. It’s not often I envy a character, but man.. This book made me do so.

While I loved the continuation of Venetia and Ben’s story, I have to say the diverging into the old tales (there was one story in particular that had me gasping – think banshee) is what made this book a treasure to me. I felt as if I were part of that privileged circle that gets to experience what it must have been like to listen to the Bard’s of old.

Mr. Delaney, thank you. You do those Bards credit – and personally, I think you should sign your name “Frank Delaney, Bard” from now on.

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CelticLady’s Reviews

The Sandman by E. T. A. Hoffman

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Summary from GoodReads:

A tale of madness, deceit and murder, The Sandman has spawned countless adaptations and informs much of modern horror.

My Review:

There is absolutely no reason for people to avoid reading this story.  First of all, it’s short – about 30 pages (and the ones I read were TINY pages).  Secondly, it’s so. freaking. amazing.  Seriously! Read it!  Now I’ll tell you why.

For my Seminar in European Literature this semester we are studying the “uncanny” – what the word means, how to define it ourselves, how it’s defined in stories, and we’re reading all sorts of fantastic things like Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Freud’s essays, and other various fantastic, “uncanny” stories.  Our class this semester started out with a bang – namely The Sandman by E.T.A. Hoffman.  You are familiar with Hoffman, although you might not realize it.  That famous Nutcracker story that graces the ballet stage every Christmas? Yup. He wrote that story.

So now that you’ve sat back and said “Oh! That guy!”, let me introduce you to the wonders of The Sandman.  When you read this story (and you will, won’t you?) I want you to think about the following things:

What is the reality in the book?

Just how creepy are dolls??

What about the story really made your hair stand on end?

Written in epistolary style, The Sandman grows in intensity, the story taking strange twists and turns until coming to an amazing, horrifying climax.  I seriously shivered typing that while I recalled it.  I wish there was a way to make my words literally compel you to shift away from this review and go find a copy, but there isn’t… or is there? Go read it! (Here’s a lovely link to it!)

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Things Mean A Lot

Vishy’s Blog

Composing Amelia by Alison Strobel

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Summary from GoodReads:

Composing Amelia, is a journey through the introduction of mental illness into a young marriage and the resulting havoc that can be wreaked by the disease. A young Los Angeles marriage is put to the test and two careers are threatened when Amelia’s husband Marcus is hired as a pastor at a remote Nebraska church. The move results in resentment and sparks the onset of mental illness in Amelia. Can Amelia’s faith stand up to the oppression in her mind and the dysfunction in her relationship with her workaholic pastor husband? Will Marcus recognize the mistakes he’s made in time to make things right—or will the darkness in Amelia’s head push her off the edge before Marcus can be the husband he’s meant to be? And how can God use such broken people to turn around the lives of the small flock of believers to whom He’s led them?

My Review:

I.. get the feeling this book was supposed to be about mental illness.  Instead, what I got was a story about an incredibly immature couple who make unrealistic choices over, and over again.  This book paints Christianity, rather.. Christians, as being incredibly naive, and selfish.  Then – story aside, the characters were annoyingly two-dimensional.  There was nothing but fluff there – and don’t get me started on the musical references when it comes to Amelia.

All I have to say about the musical aspect of the story is this – if you do not have access to a professional, classical musician when you write a story like this, then get access to one.  Having played piano, played classical music (as in, the kind Amelia would have been playing at Julliard), you could not catch me with a keyboard for my permanent practice.  There’s too many different sizes of pianos (if you absolutely cannot have a Grand).  This is just one of the things that hit me and, yes, I know I’m a music snob, but it really brings the story down and makes me wish that there’d just be more research done into it (by the way, a “song” has words, classical pieces do not).

Then there’s the husband, the minister, who’s been offered a position out of nowhere in Nebraska.  Really?  And because there’s not enough tension between him and Amelia, we have to throw in complications and.. ugh ok, this review is so disjointed by this point and honestly, I just don’t care about this book enough to go back and re-write it. This is Christian “fluff”- it’s feel-good nonsense that’ll give you a warm and fuzzy feeling as long as you don’t look too deep for a message, because it’s just not there.

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Cat’s Thoughts

Michelle’s Book Review Blog

 The Aviary by Kathleen O’Dell

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Summary from GoodReads:

Twelve-year-old Clara Dooley has spent her whole life in the Glendoveer mansion, where her mother is a servant to the kind and elderly matron of the house. Clara has never known another home. In fact, she’s confined to the grand estate due to a mysterious heart condition. But it’s a comfortable life, and if it weren’t for the creepy squawking birds in the aviary out back, a completely peaceful one too.

But once old Mrs. Glendoveer passes away, Clara comes to learn many dark secrets about the family. The Glendoveers suffered a horrific tragedy: their children were kidnapped, then drowned. And their father George Glendoveer, a famous magician and illusionist, stood accused until his death. As Clara digs deeper and deeper into the terrifying events, the five birds in the aviary seem to be trying to tell her something. And Clara comes to wonder: what is their true identity? Clara sets out to solve a decades-old murder mystery—and in doing so, unlocks a secret in her own life, too. Kathleen O’Dell deftly weaves magic, secret identities, evil villians, unlikely heroes, and the wonder of friendship into a mystery adventure with all the charm of an old fashioned classic.

My Review:

This is what I love about literature.  That I can pick up a book like The Aviary and enjoy the story, smile and put it down.  Then, I can pick up a book of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and see very, very interesting parallels between The Aviary and a story about seven ravens.  And all of the sudden, The Aviary takes on entirely different overtones.

So this story is, unfortunately, predictable – but in spite of that, it’s fun.  It’s a fantastic story for middle-graders, and even though I guessed everything that was happening just before it was revealed, I still enjoyed the revelation when it happened.  There’s elements of The Secret Garden, the Grimm’s Fairy Tale mentioned about, and some other bits and pieces of childhood favorites, and everything meshes together to create a thoroughly enchanting world – I mean, what little girl or boy wouldn’t love the thought of a secret child locked away in an old mansion? (Although, now that I think about it – the story was on par with the Grimm’s Tales in a way!)

This is one I recommend if you are looking for a fairy-tale-like story with a bit of a darker tone to it.

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Chicks Dig Books

Night Swim by Jessica Keener

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Summary from GoodReads:

Sixteen-year-old Sarah Kunitz lives in a posh, suburban world of 1970 Boston. From the outside, her parents’ lifestyle appears enviable – a world defined by cocktail parties, expensive cars, and live-in maids to care for their children – but inside their five-bedroom house, all is not well for the Kunitz family. Coming home from school, Sarah finds her well-dressed, pill-popping mother lying disheveled on their living room couch. At night, to escape their parents’ arguments, Sarah and her oldest brother, Peter, find solace in music, while her two younger brothers retreat to their rooms and imaginary lives. Any vestige of decorum and stability drains away when their mother dies in a car crash one terrible winter day. Soon after, their father, a self-absorbed, bombastic professor begins an affair with a younger colleague. Sarah, aggrieved, dives into two summer romances that lead to unforeseen consequences. In a story that will make you laugh and cry, Night Swim shows how a family, bound by heartache, learns to love again.

My Review:

This book surprised the heck out of me.  I don’t know what I loved more – Jessica Keener’s descriptions of the world contained within the book, or her ability to really capture the voice of each and every individual character. When I picked up Night Swim and started to read, I struggled a little bit to find a groove, figure out what Keener was doing, but man – once I got into a groove I couldn’t put this book down, to the detriment of the stacks upon stacks of homework I had to do.

A sort of coming-of-age story, but also a story about relationships between parents and children, different races and classes, religions, and more. This was a hodge-podge of everything that is dynamite in a story, and instead of overwhelming that story with too much, it worked very, very well, creating a compelling story that’s been stuck in my mind since I put the book down.

Every once in a while I pick up a book that I wouldn’t normally pick up in a book store.  The biggest complaint about this book is the cover, I find it way too boring and bland considering the content it’s hiding.  If I had seen it in a bookstore, I just wouldn’t have been interested – but I didn’t.  Instead I was hooked by a description and that hook was enough to get me to look past the cover and find the story.

Y’all, this one was very much worth the read.

About the Author

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Tribulations by Ken Shufeldt

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Summary from GoodReads:

An asteroid storm has obliterated the Earth. Billy and Linda West have built enough space-going arks to save a small number of people who now roam the void in search of a new home.

 

Desperate to find a safe haven, Billy makes a dangerous attempt to exceed the speed of light. When his plans go terribly wrong, the Wests’ severely-damaged ship is separated from the fleet and left drifting near a mysterious planet.

 

This world’s conditions are hospitable—but its inhabitants are not. Suddenly the Wests and their fellow survivors are caught in the middle of an ancient war between two brutal nations. Faced with horrific dangers, they are forced to choose a side just to survive.

My Review:

You know, I’m willing to overlook names like Billy and Linda Lou if the story is good, and draws me in (and it’d have to be damn good to make me feel like I’m not reading about some hicks in outer space).  Seriously though, that’s a personal thing.. I enjoy good character names, and these just seemed as if the author just didn’t give a damn about his characters – which becomes even more evident in his story.

If this story had been recited to me, orally, at bedtime, in increments, by my grandfather, I would have loved it.  It moved at a quick pace, and was written in “everyday speak” sort of language.  But that doesn’t translate to the page well.  There needs to be detail, and description.  An author should not write about how there is a language barrier between an alien race and the crew aboard a spaceship and then, a few lines later, solve that issue by saying Billy made some translation devices for everyone and they all could understand.

It’s not that easy!

There needs to be some depth to the story.  There needs to be actual time passing, don’t tell me “…a few weeks later”, write about something that happened to make me understand that time is, indeed, passing.  Did he face any difficulties?  I mean, creating a translation device, that seems pretty interesting – tell me more about it.

Furthermore, don’t create situations that you have an easy answer to.  I felt like every obstacle facing Linda and Billy was easily solved, way too easily solved, with so little actual writing space between the problem and the answer that I barely had time to wrap my mind around the issue before it had been solved.

Also – never a good idea to start a book with the morning after a wedding night.  That felt uncomfortable and weird.

I really was psyched up about this book – I wanted to enjoy a good science fiction book, and when I saw that TOR had mailed this one to me I jumped around the house and talked to everyone about it.  But man, I am so. damn. disappointed. by this story.

Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea by Morgan Callan Rogers

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Summary from GoodReads:

A captivating debut, introducing a spirited young heroine coming of age in coastal Maine during the early 1960s.

When her mother disappears during a weekend trip, Florine Gilham’s idyllic childhood is turned upside down. Until then she’d been blissfully insulated by the rhythms of family life in small town Maine; watching from the granite cliffs above the sea for her father’s lobster boat to come into port, making bread with her grandmother, and infiltrating the summer tourist camps with her friends. But with her mother gone, the heart falls out of Florine’s life and she and her father are isolated as they struggle to manage their loss. Both sustained and challenged by the advice and expectations of her family and neighbors, Florine grows up with her spirit intact. And when her father’s past comes to call, she must accept that life won’t ever be the same while keeping her mother vivid in her memories. With Fannie Flagg’s humor and Elizabeth Stroud’s sense of place, this debut is an extraordinary snapshot of a bygone America through the eyes of an inspiring girl blazing her own path to womanhood.

My Review:

This book charmed the heck outta me.  Right away, while reading a description of a time long past, a coast I’d never seen, and a girl and her mother making a spontaneous trip, I fell in love.  Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea is the perfect coming-of-age story for an older generation of women, and for the younger generation as well so they can get a glimpse of what life was like.

Here’s what I love the most about this captivating little story.  There are no neat endings, no tidy wrap-ups, and no cliches.  Instead there is heartfelt emotion, and it’s raw.. and it hurts, and I wanted to rage right along with Florine at the unfairness of life – but bravo to Rogers for making life unfair, because that’s what made this book real.  It was so real I could smell the salty air, and I could see the hot tears on Florine’s face, and feel her rage as she acts out against the adults in her life, you know – the adults who actually stuck around for her.

When I first finished this book, I sat it down and I looked at it and I thought.. that was okay, but .. do I want more?  And now that I’ve had time to sit back and think, to let the story settle, I am really, really appreciating this story for being the gem it is.

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Chicks Dig Books