Tag: fiction

Review: Unnatural Death

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Unnatural DeathDorothy L. Sayers, Unnatural Death

While dining out one day, Lord Peter Wimsey and his friend Inspector Parker are discussing so-called accidental deaths that might actually be murders. A young doctor overhears them and joins their conversation. He shares the story of a former patient, an elderly woman with cancer who died rather suddenly. She was terminally ill, and no signs of foul play were found on the body, so everyone believed her death was natural; but the doctor was nevertheless suspicious because she had seemed to be improving lately. The woman’s great-niece and presumed heiress was living with her at the time, so she had opportunity, but her motive was questionable because the old lady would die soon enough from natural causes. Lord Peter is intrigued by the case and decides to investigate. He employs Miss Climpson, a chatty but intelligent spinster, to temporarily relocate to the dead woman’s village and do some discreet investigating. Meanwhile, he and Parker search for other suspects, motives, and possible methods of the murder.

After rediscovering Dorothy Sayers earlier this year, I’ve embarked on a project to read all her Lord Peter Wimsey books in publication order. This is book #3 in the series, but if I recall correctly, it can be read as a standalone. I enjoyed this book a lot, but I feel like it’s a very unusual detective story. Despite a high body count, it doesn’t feel very action-packed or plot-driven. The main mystery is not whodunnit, but why and how. One of the biggest clues to the motive is a tiny change in an obscure property statute. Nevertheless, I found the mystery compelling and was eager to solve the complete puzzle of how and why the murder took place. Also, Miss Climpson is delightful; this is her first appearance in the series, but I believe she’ll be a recurring character in future books. She reminds me somewhat of a Jane Austen character — one of the good-hearted chatterboxes, like a more intelligent Miss Bates. I wasn’t completely on board with the characterization of the villain, whose psychology didn’t ring true for me. I doubt this will be my favorite Sayers mystery, but I did enjoy it and look forward to reading the rest of the series.

Review: Dear Enemy

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Dear EnemyJean Webster, Dear Enemy

This sequel to Daddy-Long-Legs centers around Judy’s college friend Sallie McBride, a cheerful but frivolous young woman whose wealth has prevented her from ever having to work for a living. So when Judy and her husband encourage Sallie to take over the administration of the orphanage where Judy grew up, Sallie is flabbergasted. At first she outright refuses their proposal, but eventually they convince her to give it a try. Sallie is shocked to discover that she has an aptitude for the work; and what’s more, she enjoys it! Slowly but surely, she begins to reform the orphanage and give a little joy to the orphans in her care. She also clashes immediately with the local doctor, Robin MacRae, whom she frequently addresses as “Dear Enemy.” But the more they are forced to work together, the more they come to recognize each other’s good qualities, until an unexpected tragedy finally forces Sallie to confront her true feelings.

Like Daddy-Long-Legs before it, this book is a charmingly old-fashioned epistolary novel that I absolutely adored! Sallie is an entertaining correspondent, and her letters (mostly to Judy) are light and chatty and lots of fun to read. I enjoyed the romance a lot as well — maybe even more so than in DLL (and those who’ve read DLL will understand why!). The book is also interesting for its exploration of the role of women in the workforce. Sallie encounters a lot of skepticism from the local community about whether she’s capable of being a good administrator, but she joyfully and determinedly proves them all wrong. The book is less progressive in its depiction of mental illness: both Sallie and the doctor make a few comments about “feeble-mindedness” and how people with subnormal mental functioning shouldn’t reproduce. But aside from that jarring reminder of the book’s age (pub date 1915), I really loved this book and would definitely recommend it to fans of older fiction, although I do suggest reading Daddy-Long-Legs first!

Review: The Lure of the Moonflower

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Lure of the Moonflower, TheLauren Willig, The Lure of the Moonflower

***Warning: Possible spoilers for previous books in the series!***

This last installment of the Pink Carnation series finally tells the story of the Pink Carnation herself, Miss Jane Wooliston. It’s 1807, and Napoleon’s armies have invaded Portugal. Officially, the Portuguese royal family have departed for South America; unofficially, the mad Queen Maria is still in the country, providing a focal point for the Portuguese resistance. If the French capture Queen Maria, it will be a decisive victory for Napoleon, so Jane is determined to prevent it by finding her first. But since she is ignorant of both the Portuguese language and the country’s terrain, she’ll need the help of Jack Reid, otherwise known as the Moonflower. Jack, the black sheep of the Reid family, has spied for many nations other than his own, including France. Can Jane trust him not to betray her? And when Jack meets Jane, he’s astonished to discover that the Pink Carnation is a demure young Englishwoman. Can he trust her to maintain her composure — especially when her former lover, a French spy known as the Gardener, is also on Queen Maria’s trail?

I’ve been a fan of the Pink Carnation series ever since the first book, so of course I was eagerly anticipating the final installment. I was especially excited to see that Jane was paired with Jack Reid: they have good chemistry and a believable conflict, as they are both accomplished spies who have trouble trusting each other and showing any hint of vulnerability. Their romance is the main focus of the book, with the spy plot largely being an excuse to get them together — which is fine by me, since I just wanted to see a satisfying ending for these characters whom I’ve grown to love over the course of the series. I do have some complaints, however, mostly because of the stories left untold. For example, we get a little bit of Jane’s romance with the Gardener, but that really should have been its own book. There are also a few minor characters from the series that I wish had gotten more closure. But Willig does include an afterword where she explains her decision to end the series here and gives a little “Where are they now?” update on all her recurring characters. So overall, I think this was a worthy ending to a delightful series, and I look forward to re-reading all the books one of these days!

Review: Ruin and Rising

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Ruin and RisingLeigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

***Warning: SPOILERS for previous books in the series!***

In the aftermath of the battle at Os Alta, the Darkling now sits on the Ravkan throne, and Alina and her followers have gone underground. Literally — they’re hiding out in a system of tunnels and caves beneath Ravka, where they are temporarily under the protection of the Apparat. But the Apparat has his own agenda: he wants Alina to serve as a figurehead for the loyal but uninformed peasants who believe she is a saint. Alina can’t submit to such a plan, especially when the Darkling is continually expanding his empire through the use of dark magic. But once she and her loyal allies escape, Alina knows she isn’t strong enough to defeat the Darkling, especially since she can no longer access her power. She decides to seek a third amplifier for her magic, the legendary firebird, and her sole clue leads her back to the village from which she and Mal originally came…but what she finds there will challenge everything she has ever believed.

Like the other two books in the trilogy, this is a well written novel with great world-building and an interesting plot. But I still find myself liking rather than loving these books. As I mentioned in my review of Shadow and Bone, I think my issue is that I don’t particularly like or relate to Alina as the main character. She seems to be entirely motivated by her momentous quest to defeat the Darkling, and outside of that, there’s not a lot of complexity to her character. I also don’t care about Mal, the main love interest, at all. He’s basically there to be dreamy and help Alina whenever the plot calls for it, and he doesn’t really have a personality outside of that. I found the secondary characters much more interesting, especially Nikolai — I’d love for him to get his own book at some point! I did enjoy the resolution of the plot and found the ending very satisfying. Overall, I wasn’t bowled over by this trilogy, but I’d still recommend it to YA fantasy fans.

Review: Siege and Storm

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Siege and StormLeigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm

***Warning: SPOILERS for Shadow and Bone!***

After failing to kill the Darkling, Alina and her beloved Mal are on the run. They hope that by staying far away from Ravka, they can escape the Darkling’s wrath; unfortunately, however, he catches up with them almost immediately. Despite the Darkling’s growing power, he wants to bind Alina and her magic more closely to him by searching for a second amplifier, a legendary sea serpent. For this purpose, he hires the notorious pirate Sturmhond to sail them through the northern seas. Alina nearly despairs when the sea serpent is found and the second amplifier placed on her wrist, but she finds unexpected allies in Sturmhond and his crew. After escaping the Darkling’s clutches once again, Alina finds herself at the head of a fragmented Grisha army, whose job is to defend Ravka from a possible invasion. But will her tiny force be enough to withstand the Darkling’s might?

I think I enjoyed this book even more than Shadow and Bone, mostly because Alina is more sure of herself and more determined to take charge of her own destiny. I also absolutely loved Sturmhond! What can I say — I can’t resist a swashbuckling pirate with secrets! The plot twist involving his character was somewhat predictable for me, but I still enjoyed it, and I liked watching Alina react to a new set of problems and expectations. The addition of siblings Tolya and Tamar was also a lot of fun…I liked having more characters to care about than just Alina and Mal. Many second books in a trilogy suffer from “middle book syndrome,” but I think this one is a great read on its own, and it also sets up book three very nicely. Speaking of which, my review of Ruin and Rising is coming soon, after a brief detour or two!

Review: Shadow and Bone

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Shadow and BoneLeigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

Orphan Alina Starkov has grown up believing she’s completely ordinary. Not particularly pretty or talented, she’s lived in the shadow of her best friend and fellow orphan Mal, who is handsome and popular and a talented tracker for the Ravkan army. But when Alina unexpectedly discovers that she has supernatural powers, her entire life changes in an instant. She is swept up into the world of the Grisha, an elite class of magicians who have the power to control everything from metals to tides to the human body. Alina herself has the ability to control sunlight, a rare and powerful magic that catches the attention of the Grisha’s commander, the mysterious Darkling. The Darkling encourages Alina to harness her power, telling her that she can change Ravka for the better. But in strengthening her magical abilities, will Alina end up losing the most essential part of herself?

After seeing a lot of hype for the Grisha trilogy around the Internet, I was excited to read these books but also nervous that they wouldn’t live up to their reputation. Overall, I enjoyed the trilogy, but I didn’t quite embrace it as wholeheartedly as many others have. This first book does a good job of setting the stage: the world of Ravka is robust and full of interesting details, and the central conflicts of the series are clearly established. I’m not sure how I feel about Alina as a character…she spends a lot of this book questioning herself and moping about her nonexistent love life. And yes, there’s something of a love triangle in the novel, but it’s eventually resolved in a very stark way. (In fact, I wish there had been a bit more ambiguity about it!) Fortunately, Alina does demonstrate some strength as the story progresses, and overall, I liked the book enough to pick up the second installment right away!

Review: Trouble Is a Friend of Mine

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Trouble Is a Friend of MineStephanie Tromly, Trouble Is a Friend of Mine

Zoe Webster is an utterly normal teenage girl who’s just trying to survive her parents’ divorce and her subsequent move to a small town in upstate New York. But her life is turned upside down when she meets her neighbor and classmate Digby, who’s basically the opposite of normal. He’s rude and annoying, he wears suits all the time, and he’s obsessed with the recent disappearance of a local teenage girl. Somehow he ropes Zoe, along with his former best friend Henry, into his plan to investigate the disappearance. Their research leads them to a perverted gynecologist, a drug ring, and a possible cult, as they eventually learn that the girl’s disappearance isn’t quite what it seems. Meanwhile, Zoe tries to sort through her feelings for Digby, who has involuntarily become one of her closest friends, and maybe even something more.

A lot of the hype for this book compared it to “Veronica Mars,” a TV show I really enjoyed, but unfortunately I don’t think such comparisons are particularly accurate. Yes, like VM, this book features a teen detective who solves a mystery with his friends, and there’s even a reference to the VM theme song in the book. But in my opinion, the similarities really end there; VM is much funnier and its mysteries more compelling than the events of the book. I just wasn’t engaged by the novel at all, despite the fact that there’s nothing particularly wrong with it. Maybe my issue is that the characters didn’t seem real to me. Zoe, the narrator, is essentially a blank canvas — she’s so forgettable that I had to look up her name. Digby has more personality, but since we see him through Zoe’s eyes, he remains pretty mysterious throughout the book. I didn’t get much insight into what makes him tick or why he wants to hang out with Zoe. Overall, this is not a bad book, and fans of YA mysteries might like it, but I was hoping for more.

Review: A School for Brides

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School for Brides, APatrice Kindl, A School for Brides

The students of the Winthrop Hopkins Female Academy all know that their primary goal is not to receive a scholarly education but to learn the ladylike skills necessary to attract a husband. The problem is that the school is located in Lesser Hoo, Yorkshire, a country village with absolutely no eligible men. There are currently six girls of marriageable age at the school, and they are constantly bemoaning the dearth of potential husbands in the area. Fortunately, a chance encounter with some gentlemen who are visiting a nearby estate for hunting season provides them with all the romance and intrigue their hearts desire. Some of the girls fall in love with relative ease, while others find various obstacles in their paths. But when a valuable necklace goes missing and the school’s footman is the chief suspect, the girls and their paramours band together to clear his name and find the real culprit.

I had previously read and enjoyed Patrice Kindl’s [Keeping the Castle], which is set in the same village and features some of the minor characters in this book. So I was predisposed to enjoy this novel, and by and large I found it a pleasant read. The writing is light and brisk, very evocative of Georgette Heyer’s style (though of course not as good). I also liked the fact that the girls’ romances develop in a variety of ways. Some of them are true love stories with a happy ending, but some of them end in heartbreak, while one girl marries a kind man she doesn’t love after being betrayed by another suitor. This variety of outcomes especially makes sense in the Regency era, when marriage was basically the only choice for a gently bred young woman. The one thing I didn’t like was that, because of the sheer number of characters to follow, none of them are given much depth. I wasn’t particularly invested in any of the romances, nor did the mystery of the stolen necklace hold my interest (mostly because it was so easy to figure out). But for those who enjoy witty Regency fluff, I’d recommend this book as a fun read.

Review: The Other Daughter

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Other Daughter, TheLauren Willig, The Other Daughter

Working-class Rachel Woodley is currently employed as a governess in France, but she must return to England in a hurry when she learns that her mother is ill. By the time she gets back to her native village, her mother has died. As a grieving Rachel sorts through her mother’s possessions, she discovers a shocking secret: her father, whom she believed had died many years ago, is actually alive and well. Moreover, he’s an earl with a wife and daughter — his legitimate family. Shocked and angry, Rachel decides she must confront her father somehow. With the help of Simon Montfort, a young gentleman who is part of the earl’s social circle, Rachel assumes a new identity in order to get closer to her father. As she infiltrates the crowd of Bright Young Things in 1920s London, she manages to meet her half-sister and even obtain an invitation to the earl’s home. But the more she gets to know this side of her family, the more Rachel wavers in her desire for revenge.

While I adore Lauren Willig’s Pink Carnation series, her standalone novels have been a bit less successful, in my opinion. They usually lack the humor that makes the Pink Carnation books so much fun, and Willig’s trademark dual narratives (one historical, one contemporary) would split my focus in a way that I found very distracting. Happily, in this book, there is no contemporary framework narrative; the entire book follows Rachel’s journey in the 1920s. Perhaps for this reason, I ended up really liking the novel! I found Rachel’s motivations and feelings very believable, as she tries to deal with the fact that her entire identity has shifted. I also like that her feelings slowly change as she realizes that neither her father nor her half-sister is the pure villain she imagined at first. Of course, there’s a romance in the book as well, which I enjoyed very much — Simon is a delicious hero with a very interesting backstory. Overall, I liked this book a lot and would definitely recommend it to fans of historical fiction!

Review: First & Then

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First & ThenEmma Mills, First & Then

Devon Tennyson is a high school senior who couldn’t be more ordinary. She’s a decent but not exceptional student; she’s an only child with a stable home life; and she has no idea what she wants to do after graduation. For now, she’s happy to ignore the future and concentrate on having fun with her best friend Cas, who she’s hoping will finally notice her as more than just a friend. But when Devon’s freshman cousin Foster moves in with her family, her life slowly begins to change. Foster is strange and socially awkward, but while Devon finds him annoying at first, she eventually becomes very protective of him. Foster also introduces Devon to star quarterback Ezra Lynley, who’s recently transferred to their high school. Ezra is handsome, popular, and a shoo-in for a football scholarship, so Devon immediately assumes he’s an arrogant jerk. But the more she gets to know Ezra, the more she realizes that her first impression may not have been justified.

I’d been dying to read this book ever since I saw it promoted as “Pride and Prejudice meets Friday Night Lights.” I think that’s a fair comparison, in the sense that if you like those two things, you’ll probably like this book as well. Devon is a refreshingly ordinary heroine, and I enjoyed her wry, self-deprecating voice. I also really loved the progression of her relationship with Foster from distant cousins to (essentially) brother and sister. The romance with Ezra was nicely developed (the slowest of slow burns), but for some reason I didn’t find it especially compelling. Maybe that’s the reason I didn’t quite fall in love with this book the way I wanted to. But I do love the fact that Devon’s relationships with Foster and Ezra also open her up to other friendships. Initially, Devon’s only friend is Cas, and she’s so invested in him that she doesn’t really pay attention to anyone else. But throughout the course of the novel, she realizes that she’s been a bit self-absorbed and makes more of an effort to reach out to other people. So overall, I’m glad this book wasn’t just about the romance, but I still wish I’d felt a little more of the connection between Devon and Ezra.

N.B. An ARC of this book was graciously provided by the publisher. Publication date is October 13, 2015.