Chatterbox Tackles 13 in 13

I have a nasty habit of postponing the heavy reading for these challenges until late in the year -- no wonder I keep failing miserably!!

This year's categories are drawn from the titles of popular songs from the "American Songbook", which is music that I love listening to. For this year's Baker's Dozen challenge, I'll alternate trying to read 13 books with a half dozen books, challenge by challenge.




My philosophy of reading?? The bottom line: I like to balance my reading between non-fiction and fiction; between "serious" tomes and more frivolous fluffy books that provide great entertainment if little in the way of nutritional value. I'm a big mystery fan, I read historical fiction and chick lit and am tip-toeing into the worlds of fantasy and sci-fi, although VERY selectively. Any kind of book can be a "thumping good read"; I'd rather read a mystery that falls into that category than a much-acclaimed or buzzed-about book that I find pretentious or self-conscious (one in which the author seems more intent on telling the world how smart he or she is than on capturing the reader's full attention.) Good writing, good characters, a great plot are the keys to a good writing -- all need to be present and accounted for. When it comes to non-fiction, my expectations are a little lower -- I can cope with more clunky writing if the story being told is fabulous. This year, I'm going to try to keep my non-fiction reading to about 25% of the total. (That is overall; I expect about 2/3 of my books will pop up in my 75 books challenge, which doesn't overlap with this one at all.)

A guide to my ratings, which are highly subjective:
1.5 or less: A tree gave its life so that this book could be printed and distributed?
1.5 to 2.7: Are you really prepared to give up hours of your life for this?? I wouldn't recommend doing so...
2.8 to 3.3: Do you need something to fill in some time waiting to see the dentist? Either reasonably good within a ho-hum genre (chick lit or thrillers), something that's OK to read when you've nothing else with you, or that you'll find adequate to pass the time and forget later on.
3.4 to 3.8: Want to know what a thumping good read is like, or a book that has a fascinating premise, but doesn't quite deliver? This is where you'll find 'em.
3.9 to 4.4: So, you want a hearty endorsement? These books have what it takes to make me happy I read them.
4.5 to 5: The books that I wish I hadn't read yet, so I could experience the joy of discovering them again for the first time. Sometimes disquieting, sometimes sentimental faves, sometimes dramatic -- they are a highly personal/subjective collection!

I: "Let's Begin" by Harold Arlen

Debut novels; books by authors who are new to me, or other discoveries.




1. The Life of Objects by Susanna Moore, **** STARTED 2/19/13, FINISHED 2/21/13
2. The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner *** 1/2 STARTED 3/11/13, FINISHED 3/27/13
3. Songs of Willow Frost by Jamie Ford, ***1/2, STARTED 11/8/13, FINISHED 11/9/13
4. Studio Saint-Ex by Ania Szabo ***, STARTED 7/30/13, FINISHED 8/12/13
5. The Golden Scales by Parker Bilal **** 1/2 STARTED 1/17/13, FINISHED 1/31/13
6. The Gravity of Birds by Tracy Guzeman, ***, STARTED 10/15/13, FINISHED 10/17/13
7. Queen's Gambit by Elizabeth Fremantle, ****, STARTED 11/25/13, FINISHED 11/27/13
8. Black Roses by Jane Thynne, ****, STARTED 11/9/13, FINISHED 11/12/13
9. The Hour of the Rat by Lisa Brackmann, STARTED 11/23/13, FINISHED 11/24/13
10. Elders: A Novel by Ryan McIlvain **** STARTED 5/23/13, FINISHED 5/25/13
11. Margot by Jillian Cantor, STARTED 6/16/13, FINISHED 6/17/13
12. Brief Encounters with the Enemy by Said Sayrafiezadeh, **** 1.2 STARTED 10/18/13, FINISHED 10/21/13
13. Ripper by Isabel Allende, *** STARTED 11/19/13, FINISHED 11/21/13

II. "April in Paris" by Vernon Duke

Books in French; set in France; by French authors; about France.




1. Bitter Almonds by Laurence Cosse, **** STARTED 6/5/13, FINISHED 6/6/13
2. The Iron King by Maurice Druon, ****, STARTED 8/26/13, FINISHED 9/2/13 (audiobook)
3. Paris Was the Place by Susan Conley **1/2, READ OCTOBER 2013
4. The Paris Winter by Imogen Robertson STARTED 11/24/13
5. All the Light There Was by Nancy Kricorian **1/2, STARTED 3/21/13, FINISHED 3/22/13
6. Le Grand Coeur by Jean-Christophe Rufin

III. "You're the Top" by Cole Porter

Books that have soared into the stratosphere and wound up longlists or shortlists for some kind of literary prize.




1. The Imposter Bride by Nancy Richler (Giller Prize)
2. 419 by Will Ferguson (Giller Prize)
3. The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson (National Book Critics Circle Award) **** STARTED 11/29/13, FINISHED 11/30/13
4. Ignorance by Michele Roberts (Women's Prize for Fiction longlist)
5. HHhH by Laurence Binet (Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman)
6. The Big Music by Kirsty Dunn (James Tait Black Prize shortlist)
7. Unexploded by Alison MacLeod (Man Booker longlist) ****, STARTED 8/28/13, FINISHED 8/30/13
8. The Last Policeman by Ben Winters (Edgar best first novel) ***1/2, STARTED 11/13/13, FINISHED 11/14/13
9. In the Woods by Tana French (Macavity Best first novel) ****1/2, STARTED 11/17/13, FINISHED 11/24/13
10. The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan (James Tait Black shortlist) **** STARTED 9/15/13, FINISHED 9/16/13
11. To Kill a Tsar by Andrew Williams (Walter Scott Prize shortlist) **** STARTED 9/4/13, FINISHED 9/6/13
12. The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon (Commonwealth Writers' Prize shortlist)
13. The Crooked Maid by Dan Vyleta (Giller Prize finalist) STARTED 12/3/13

IV: "Time After Time" by Jule Styne

Books set in two different time periods, or involving time travel, or something else of that ilk.




1. The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse, *** STARTED 11/19/13, FINISHED 11/20/13
2. The Orchid House by Lucinda Riley *** STARTED 11/29/13, FINISHED 12/3/13
3. Ashenden by Elizabeth Wilhide STARTED 12/23/13, FINISHED 12/27/13
4. The Ashford Affair by Lauren Willig ***1/2, STARTED 12/6/13, FINISHED 12/9/13
5. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson **** STARTED 5/12/13, FINISHED 5/27/13
6. Firebird by Susanna Kearsley ***1/2 STARTED 3/3/13, FINISHED 3/5/13

V: "My Favorite Things" by Rodgers & Hammerstein

Books by authors who consistently deliver "thumping good reads"




1. A Dying Fall by Elly Griffiths **** STARTED 1/26/13, FINISHED 1/28/13
2. The Jackal's Shore by Chris Morgan Jones, STARTED 4/5/13, FINISHED 4/8/13
3. Dead Water by Ann Cleeves **** STARTED 3/6/13, FINISHED 3/8/13
4. Through the Evil Days by Julia Spencer-Fleming, ****1/2, READ 9/1/13
5. A Question of Identity by Susan Hill, ****1/2, STARTED 1/12/13, FINISHED 1/13/13
6. Dissolution by C.J. Sansom **** 1/2 STARTED 3/5/13, FINISHED 3/11/13
7. The Marseille Caper by Peter Mayle, ***1/2, STARTED 3/26/13, FINISHED 3/27/13
8. Dark Fire by C.J. Sansom, ****1/2, STARTED 4/5/13, FINISHED 4/12/13
9. Revenge Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger, ***1/2, STARTED 6/2/13, FINISHED 6/3/13
10. Snuff by Terry Pratchett, ****, READ MAY 2013
11. The Kill List by Frederick Forsyth, ***1/2, STARTED 6/17/13, FINISHED 6/19/13
12. A Fugue in Time by Rumer Godden, **** STARTED 6/21/13, FINISHED 6/23/13
13. Masaryk Station by David Downing, **** STARTED 7/29/13, FINISHED 7/31/13

VI: "Do It Again" by George & Ira Gershwin

Re-Reading Favorite Books.




1. The Passing Bells by Phillip Rock, ****, READ APRIL 2013
2. Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer ***1/2 STARTED 2/17/13, FINISHED 2/20/13
3. Child of the Morning by Pauline Gedge **** STARTED 2/2/13, FINISHED 2/4/13
4. Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy by Rumer Godden, **** STARTED 1/8/13, FINISHED 1/9/13
5. Wildfire at Midnight by Mary Stewart, ****, STARTED 7/3/13, FINISHED 7/4/13
6. Thursday's Children by Rumer Godden, ****, STARTED 1/23/13, FINISHED 1/24/13

VII: "I Can't Give You Anything But (the books I) Love, Honey" by Jimmy McHugh

This is where "book bullets" end up; the suggestions from other readers for great books.




1. Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo
2. The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis **** STARTED 1/10/13, FINISHED 1/12/13
3. Ashes and Diamonds by Jerzy Andrzejewski ****1/2 STARTED 2/4/13, FINISHED 2/17/13
4. The Lighthouse by Alison Moore STARTED 11/18/13
5. Japantown by Barry Lancet ***1/2 STARTED 12/22/13, FINISHED 12/27/13
6. Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden **** READ 1/12/13
7. The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
8. An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris STARTED ***** 11/26/13, FINISHED 11/29/13
9. The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie King, **** STARTED 4/2/13, FINISHED 4/5/13
10. Niccolo Rising by Dorothy Dunnett
11. Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews **** STARTED 7/19/13, FINISHED 7/21/13
12. Catilina's Riddle by Steven Saylor **** STARTED 8/12/13, FINISHED 8/17/13
13. The Land of Spices by Kate O'Brien, ****, READ 8/31/13

VIII: "On a Slow Boat to China" by Frank Loesser

Books about travel, or about discovering new countries, etc.




1. The Unconquered by Scott Wallace (the Amazon)
2. When America First Met China by Eric Jay Dolin
3. Travels with a Tangerine by Tim Mackintosh-Smith
4. Meander by Jeremy Seal
5.
6.

IX: "Three Little Words" by Harry Ruby & Bert Kalmar

Books with titles three words long! Any genre, fiction or non-fiction...




1. Cross and Burn by Val McDermid, ****, READ OCTOBER 2013
2. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, ****, READ 10/23/13
3. The Tightrope Walker by Dorothy Gilman, ***, READ OCTOBER 2013
4. The Windsor Faction by D.J. Taylor, **, STARTED 10/1/13, FINISHED 10/29/13
5. Heirs and Graces by Rhys Bowen, ***1/2, READ SEPT 2013
6. The Shanghai Moon by SJ Rozan, **** STARTED 6/28/13, FINISHED 6/30/13
7. The Aspern Papers by Henry James, ****1/2, STARTED 10/09/13, FINISHED 10/17/13
8. The Stone Carvers by Jane Urquhart, STARTED 1/20/13, FINISHED 6/30/13
9. The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan, ***1/2 STARTED 2/9/13, FINISHED 2/12/13
10. The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin, ****1/2, STARTED 2/12/13, FINISHED 2/15/13
11. The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro ***1/2 STARTED 3/13/13, FINISHED 3/14/13
12. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein **** STARTED 3/15/13, FINISHED 3/18/13
13. Blood and Beauty by Sarah Dunant **** STARTED 6/9/13, FINISHED 6/12/13

X: "There's No Business Like Show Business" by Irving Berlin

Books about any aspect of the performing arts.




1. Verdi's Shakespeare by Gary Wills
2. Morality Play by Barry Unsworth ***** STARTED 11/20/13, FINISHED 11/22/13 (audiobook)
3. Unfinished Score by Elise Blackwell
4. Duende by Jason Webster STARTED 11/13/13
5. The Gershwins and Me by Michael Feinstein **** STARTED 1/5/13, FINISHED 2/27/13
6. Saving Mozart by Raphael Jerusalemy, **** STARTED 11/13/13, FINISHED 11/14/13

XI: "A Ship Without a Sail" by Rodgers & Hart

Actually, a place for books about ships WITH sails, especially Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey & Maturin series.




1. The Ionian Mission by Patrick O'Brian, **** STARTED 12/24/12, FINISHED 1/2/13
2. Treason's Harbor by Patrick O'Brian **** STARTED 1/2/13, FINISHED 1/11/13
3. The Far Side of the World by Patrick O'Brian **** STARTED 1/11/13, FINISHED 1/17/13
4. The Reverse of the Medal by Patrick O'Brian **** STARTED 1/18/13, FINISHED 1/20/13
5. The Letter of Marque by Patrick O'Brian **** STARTED 1/20/13, FINISHED 1/26/13
6. The Thirteen-Gun Salute by Patrick O'Brian **** STARTED 2/6/13, FINISHED 2/15/13
7. The Nutmeg of Consolation by Patrick O'Brian **** STARTED 2/15/13, FINISHED 2/23/13
8. The Truelove by Patrick O'Brian ***1/2 STARTED 2/24/13, FINISHED 3/1/13
9. The Wine-Dark Sea by Patrick O'Brian *** 1/2, STARTED 3/1/13, FINISHED 3/6/13
10. The Commodore by Patrick O'Brian ****, STARTED 3/7/13, FINISHED 3/17/13
11. The Yellow Admiral by Patrick O'Brian ***1/2, STARTED 3/17/13, FINISHED 3/21/13
12. The Hundred Days by Patrick O'Brian ***1/2 STARTED 3/22/13, FINISHED 3/27/13
13. Blue at the Mizzen by Patrick O'Brian *** 1/2, STARTED MAY 2013, FINISHED 12/22/13

XII: "Let's Misbehave" by Cole Porter

Books with unloveable main characters and unreliable narrators




1. The Blind Goddess by Anne Holt STARTED 11/13/13
2. The turn of the Screw by Henry James
3. Angel by Elizabeth Taylor ****, STARTED 1/19/13, FINISHED 1/19/20
4. The Execution of Noa P. Singleton by Elizabeth Silver, *** STARTED 6/27/13, FINISHED 6/28/13
5. The Racketeer by John Grisham, *** STARTED 2/4/13, FINISHED 2/6/13
6. The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud, ****1/2 STARTED 6/2/13, FINISHED 6/4/13

XIII: "Don't Fence Me In" by Cole Porter

The category for the uncategorizable: an "anything goes", catch-all category.




1. Lighthouse Island by Paulette Jiles *** STARTED 11/23/13, FINISHED 11/25/13
2. A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell, ****1/2 STARTED 1/16/13, FINISHED 1/26/13
3. Worthy Brown's Daughter by Phillip Margolin, STARTED 10/24/13, FINISHED 10/25/13
4. Habits of the House by Fay Weldon, ***1/2, STARTED 2/26/13, FINISHED 2/28/13
5. The Night Ranger by Alex Berenson, ***1/2, STARTED 3/2/13, FINISHED 3/3/13
6. Black Irish by Stephan Talty, ****, STARTED 3/18/13, FINISHED 3/19/13
7. The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor, **** STARTED 3/27/13, FINISHED 3/31/13
8. Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith, ***1/2 READ MAY 2013
9. The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon, *** STARTED 6/3/13, FINISHED 6/5/13
10. The Bat by Jo Nesbo, *** 1/2 STARTED 7/22/13, FINISHED 7/26/13
11. An Extremely English Monsoon Wedding by Christina Jones ***1/2, STARTED 7/30/13, FINISHED 7/31/13
12. The English Girl by Daniel Silva ****1/2, STARTED 8/27/13, FINISHED 8/28/13
13. Pagan Spring by G.M. Malliet ***, STARTED 10/20/13, FINISHED 10/21/13

Love your categories! Cole Porter really knew how to write a song, didn't he? Looking forward to following your reading.

I like your musical categories. Without fail, one of them has gotten lodged in my head and will probably be with me for the better part of the day. Thanks! ;-)

Great categories! I also have a nautical category and am planning to read several more of Patrick O'Brian's books.

Great categories - this is the first thread that I've hummed my way through!! mamzel - join me in "Don't Fence Me In" for the rest of the day? :)

Thanks! I was wondering what I would do this year, and then last weekend found myself caught up watching a history of Broadway on PBS. This is all music that I have loved for years, anyway, and it was fun trying to find songs that fit categories, and adapting categories to fit the song! Now on to the fun stuff -- finding books that will fit both!!

A nicely creative theme with some interesting categories.

Ah! A PBS special on the history of Broadway that I didn't know about. Just went to my local stations website and found out there are two more episodes left. Duly set to record now. Thanks for mentioning it!

Sadly, the blowout of the 14th street transformer in NYC Monday night blew out the audio on my cable box (and several other things, including part of my fuse box) in Brooklyn. So I won't be watching that episode on Sunday night... I may have to order the DVD...

>22 Chatterbox: I hope the subway lines are running where you are in Brooklyn. Luckily, they are fine for me in Hell's Kitchen. I report to my school in the Bronx tomorrow, and I hope it is okay (It's an old building and has flooded during regular rain storms.)

I hope you New York LT:ers are doing fine and that minor material issues are the only problems you need to face.

>18 -Eva-: Eva, actually I had "You're the Top" especially with the version done by Alan Alda in the series, M*A*S*H which is the theme chosen by rabbitprincess! Now the threads are weaving together!

>25 mamzel:: Ha! Love that version! :D Meanwhile I'm dangerously close to having "My Favourite Things" stuck in my head...

Hi Suzanne, looking forward to following your reading again next year. Category VII's song is the one that I'm humming now. It reminds me of that great Cary Grant - Katherine Hepburn movie, "Bringing Up Baby".

... and I've been alternating between Ella singing "April in Paris", and a raucous Broadway versionof "you're the top"!

I live across the street from an entrance to the first functioning subway station in Brooklyn. It only goes deeper into Brooklyn, however... There is NO service from Manhattan to Brooklyn, or vice versa. They have put special express buses on, but there is a two to three hour wait to board them. My test run will be on Saturday, when I have symphony tickets. Most folks that I know are dealing with power outages, and other such stuff; there have been floods and fires, but compared to the population size, we should feel grateful. I do think that most NYers are more than a little annoyed that instead of just being able to get ourselves organized, we will have to forfeit our Sunday to the paralysis induced by the Marathon. It runs almost right past my house, which means that I'll be pretty much stuck inside all day Sunday -- can't cross the street, so can't get anywhere that serves brunch, etc., can't get to grocery store or bank, etc. etc. But I'm not faced with pumping out a flooded home.

Ah, "My Favourite Things". I've known that one by heart since I was a kid (I was in an amateur production of The Sound of Music) and can't even read the title of the song without it starting to play in my head.

I am constantly amazed by your breadth - and volume! - of reading Suzanne, so I happy to see you back for 2013, book bullets be damned! The theme you have chosen is fantastic... such great songs!

Suzanne, we both have a musical theme this year! It should be fun.

Congratulations on a brilliant idea to organize your 13 in 13!

Just stopping in to say Hi and star you for next year. I like your 3 word title category. I had one last year for one-word titles. Looking forward to your reading choices.

Stack up a couple of books, get a tea or coffee, pull a chair up to a window, and think how much more fun you're having than those runners on Sun.

Would like to add to the applause, esp for the 3 word title section. Will be checking back to see how it all progresses...

Meantime I now have a song cootie running around my brain...

Thank you, thank you...
*curtseying gracefully while accepting applause during my curtain call*
I will admit that if there is one talent that I truly covet, it's the ability sing, especially songs like this. I doubt I would have pursued a career in it, but I have a couple of former journalistic colleagues who sing in the Collegiate Chorale here in NYC; they perform in Carnegie Hall a few times a year. One of them is now retired and involved in a very small opera company in the Bronx, I think. Being able to participate in music beyond being an appreciate audience member would be fabulous.
Today's song stuck in my brain? "Slow Boat to China".

Ditto on welcomes and great categories

->35 Chatterbox:. Unless you are genuinely tone deaf (which extremely few people are) everyone can sing and do it fairly well. I love choirs (I've got a category for it! :D) and dearly wish I was able to sing in one but time and location won't allow it atm. I nearly joined the chamber choir a few years ago but got a throat infection and then moved shortly after.

Oddly, I've got an excellent ear -- when I was studying classical guitar, my teacher used to make me tune his as well as my guitar! -- but my voice isn't powerful enough and tilts toward going flat. Last choir I sang in was in grade 8...

>37 PawsforThought: - Obviously you have never heard me sing! I'm fairly sure I fall into the genuinely tone deaf category. My mother once told me that the song I sang was nice but next time to try and sing it on key. Sigh. I just appreciate the talent in others now.

My kids used to groan and cover their ears if I sang along with a song. It always deflated my good mood when they did this and I told them so. They're both adults now and have their own cars so I can sing all I want to now!

Well, tone deaf people can't hear when ANYONE is singing out of tune (including themselves) so if you've heard heard anyone else sing out of tune, or been able to hear if an instrument is out of tune, you're not tone deaf.

I went around thinking I had a terrible singing voice (due to an issue with my hearing when I was a child) - wondering if I was tone deaf - but then had a singing teacher tell me I had a beautiful singing voice and shouldn't be afraid to sing in front of people. It was quite a shock! I'm still to shy to sing solo but choirs are alright.

Suzanne, I love your musical selections, particularly Cole Porter! (And he's one of my fellow Hoosiers, too!)

I'm not tone deaf, but I've never learned how to make my voice hit the right notes, so I sing like a dying, drunken goat with strep throat. I probably need to take a class or something, but that would involve sounding like the aforementioned goat in front of a music professional. And that would just be bad.

That's what music professionals are for!

Love your theme! :) Your first category, "Let's Begin," could also cover book #1 of a series if you wanted.

Count me in with the music lovers! I can carry a tune, but I don't have a particularly amazing voice. Right now I'm singing in my church choir and absolutely loving it!

I haven't finished putting my thread in order, but already I have finished a book for this challenge!

The Ionian Mission by Patrick O'Brian is the latest in this series (I think #8) featuring Stephen Maturin, spy, natural scientist and naval surgeon, and his best buddy, Jack Aubrey, British navy captain, as they seek to defeat Napoleon in their various ways. I'm listening to these on audio, as the narrator is fabulous and creates a great sense of personality for the two main characters (simply a shift in tone of voice is enough to tell me who is speaking!) and it's my "bedtime listening" these days. My faves in the series have been those books that combine the seagoing stuff with shenanigans on land, especially the two most recent, and this one was a bit underwhelming -- Jack sails here or there, gets into some confusing political negotiations with Turkish beys that flummoxed me even though I do know a bit about the Ottoman empire of the era -- so note my fave. I'll give it 3.8 stars. I have already started listening to the next in the series, Treason's Harbor, which kicks off with the daring duo in Malta, and the HMS Surprise in dry dock. There are spies stalking them, so this may be more to my taste than the episodes dealing only with naval battles...

Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy is Rumer Godden's "other" book about nuns, much less well known than either In This House of Brede or Black Narcissus. I suppose I can understand why, as the narrative arc doesn't become apparent until unusually late, even by Rumer Godden's standards. It's the story of Elizabeth Fanshawe, aka Lise, who, after murdering her boyfriend (a pimp and owner of a 'maison' for high end prostitutes in Paris) serves time in prison, only to join an order of nuns she encounters there -- and then finds she hasn't really left the past behind as she believes. I'm not religious, but still have found these novels moving, dealing as much with characters and the quest for a kind of stability and sense of purpose as with religion itself. This was a re-read for me; I probably hadn't read this in more than a decade, but like most of Godden's novels for adults, it retains its power to capture my attention. I first discovered her when I was 14, with The Peacock Spring, and while this wouldn't be one of my all-time faves of hers, it's still enjoyable to rediscover.

Treason's Harbour by Patrick O'Brian is the latest (#9) in my audiobook voyage of discovery of Napoleonic seafaring and battles in the company of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. As I am finding increasingly, the books and parts of these books that I enjoy most are those where there is character-driven suspense rather than seafaring details -- I'm still not sure I either know or care about the difference between different sails or can appreciate the fine points of navigation, which strike me as tough to convey in a book anyway. In this book, that is definitely the case, as the seafaring/adventures feel kind of pointless and rambling, while those portions of the narrative set in Malta and involving espionage are quite suspenseful indeed, especially the need by one of the characters at the end to do a midnight flit... We learn fairly early on of a surprising traitor in the ranks, and it's equally surprising that Stephen appears a bit blind to this person's identity. Indeed, the fact that this plot line wasn't resolved but ends with a kind of cliffhanger has made me move right on to the next book in the series rather than pausing, as I had intended, to listen to another audiobook (part 1 of The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning, which I read in book format abt 20 years ago and that I now want to listen to.) So, this one gets 3.9 stars, and it's on to Master and Commander.

I really want to start the Aubrey/Maturin series. Someday!

Christina, you should -- I delayed for a long time, and found the audiobooks (narrated by Patrick Tull) are an ideal way to really get into the characters. I picked up some of the book books at Strand recently, and the story was oddly less appealing when written -- that's far from my usual experience. I'm now well into the next book in the series, The Far Side of the World.

Meanwhile...

Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden is the first in a series of dystopian YA novels. It doesn't measure up to The Hunger Games or some others I have read, and with a plot revolving around a group of high school students taking to the wild and hiding out after a sudden invasion of their country by a foreign army, it's perhaps uncannily like the first film version of "Red Dawn" featuring Patrick Swayze, to be seen as fresh or new. (Indeed, I found myself anticipating -- correctly -- some of the situations based on my recollections of that film.) Still, Marsden's teens are less gung-ho and more thoughtful, and more like bona fide teenagers than war games-playing kids eager to start taking out the enemy. I'll be reading the sequel. 3.8 stars.

The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis is a hoot. It's not literary fiction, and sometimes the humor is a bit strained, but I ended up not caring, because the spirit at the heart of this wry insider's look at Canadian politics (well, at politics...) is both affectionate and satirical. Daniel Addison has had enough of politics, serving as a speechwriter to the top folks at Canada's Liberal Party, especially after discovering his girlfriend in flagrante delicto with her boss. ("let's just say she was enthusiastically lobbying his caucus", Fallis writes, going on to cloak the descriptions of their antics in entirely parliamentary prose; I may never be able to hear the words "royal assent" to a bill without chortling.) Nonetheless, even after taking a teaching job at the University of Ottawa and moving to a nearby Ottawa River town, Addison somehow finds that he has agreed to find a Liberal candidate to run against the local incumbent in an upcoming election, the most popular Tory in the country and seemingly unchallengable. He ends up drafting his new landlord, a crusty and recently widowed engineering professor whose passions are for building a hovercraft, chess, and his late wife. Angus McLintock, however, has only agreed to run if Daniel takes over his "English for Engineers" course and on the promise that he'll never win and won't have to campaign. It's a shock for Daniel. "No lawn signs in an election campaign? It's like Trudeau without the rose, Diefenbaker without jowls, or the Leafs winning the Stanley Cup. It's unnatural," one character says. But strange things happen... Maybe a bit predictable, but funny. And if you want an inside glimpse into what makes Canadians "Canadian", well, here's a book you can read. Nope, it's not literary, but who cares? 4 stars.

Both of these are for my "book bullets" category, with LT member DeltaQueen responsible for #1, and my most reliable advisor on Canadian fiction guiding me to #2. This may in fact be a year in which I read a lot of Canadian novels...

Glad to hear you liked The Best Laid Plans! It's a book I really enjoyed but somehow always hesitate about recommending, probably because humour is so subjective that it's hard to know what will click with a reader and what will turn them off.

#49 - a quieter, more thoughtful version of Red Dawn is exactly right. Glad you enjoyed it, and I also intend to carry on with this series, but I suspect you may get to #2 before me.

#50 -- yes, I think part of it is that some of the humor is tied to very Canadian things, like the bit I mentioned. And generally speaking, it is a bit obvious for me (well, I hate standup comedy...) but it works in the context of the general narrative...

Judy, yes, I've already started book #2!

But meanwhile, speaking of series...

A Question of Identity by Susan Hill gets going only slowly, as we read first of an old trial, an acquittal and a man who gets a new identity -- and then learn about what has been happening in the fictional cathedral city of Lafferton, home to DCS Simon Serailler, his widowed twin sister Cat Deerbon, his father and his stepmother. One thing that I love about this series is that it really is a series of novels that happen to revolve around crimes, but in which the characters are important. Simon struggles with his romantic relationship; Cat has to deal with what may happen to the hospice where she works and to addressing conflict between her two elder children and understanding why her stepmother is suddenly aloof. Because I've read other books in the series, I didn't get impatient with the slow start, knowing that Hill would eventually get the novel going full throttle, which indeed is what happens with the first death of an elderly woman in Lafferton that appears uncannily close to the earlier Yorkshire crimes. Def. recommended to series fans, and if you like mysteries but haven't tried this series, what are you waiting for? But do start at the beginning; Hill has no compunction in turning her recurring characters' lives upside down, and if you start midway through, there will be too many spoilers. Excellent series, 4.25 stars

Found your category thread! I haven't even heard of Susan Hill. I don't read a lot of mysteries, but this is the kind I like - the ones where the characters have "real" lives.

I don't have patience for standup comedy either. A lot of comics seem to just make a statement in a goofy way, pause, and then the audience thinks "Oh, they've paused! They must have said something funny!" and then everyone shrieks and giggles hard enough to bring the house down. Often I prefer to read the routines in print and decide for myself what parts are actually funny.

One of the only genuinely funny comedy "shows" I ever saw in my life was Lily Tomlin's performance in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. It was very smart and genuinely witty... and of course, not strictly standup at all, but a one-woman show.

#53 -- I do recommend this series VERY highly. And it isn't getting weaker with time, either (my pet peeve with mystery series...)

Finished The Far Side of the World by Patrick O'Brian, which is a quite good entry in the Aubrey/Maturin series, still being listened to as audiobooks, narrated by Patrick Tull. At points, especially the concluding 'pages', it's very suspenseful -- Maturin falls out of the boat one evening and when Jack dives out to save him, they realize there is no boat trailing behind as usual and the two are left behind as HMS Surprise sails merrily off toward the horizon.... Surprise & its crew are chasing an American ship, the Norfolk, that is preying on British whalers, but they get a "surprise" when they finally catch up with her. This involves rounding Cape Horn, and sailing on both coasts of South America, including a visit to the Galapagos. Oh yes, and a sloth makes another appearance. Or at least, a sloth-like creature languishing on a verandah in Brazil that Maturin comments might have been mistaken for a fuzzy mat, had it not sneezed at one point. 4 stars. Moving on to #11, as this one ended on a cliffhanger of sorts -- and with a postscript warning that O'Brian plans to abandon purely linear time. I had wondered how he was going to manage to keep the series going. Book 1 began in 1802; we are now in about 1813 and book 10. And yet we don't get to Napoleon's 100 days until book #19, which means we somehow cram 8 books into a mere 18 months -- hard to imagine when each involves months of sailing... I'll be trying to forget this sleight of hand as I read on, but I am looking for a place to pause for a month or two so that I can switch to listening to The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning.

The Reverse of the Medal by Patrick O'Brian is yet another book in the Aubrey/Maturin series that ends on a kind of cliffhanger. Yes, we know Jack's fate, after he falls afoul of what at first seems to be a great opportunity to reverse his fortunes now that he is back on land; we know that Stephen, after his own misfortunes, finally seems to be closing in on the conspiracy being overseen by some very high-powered traitors. It reinforced my fondness for books that combine land and sea, and this one has some big developments in both the personal stories of the two long-term friends, and some great Napoleonic espionage. So I had to move promptly on to the next book in the series, of course... Still consuming this series via the audiobooks narrated by Patrick Tull. 4.1 stars.

Angel by Elizabeth Taylor. Hmmm, difficult to sort out my feelings about this. Certainly depressing, and the wrong choice of book to read right now, when I'm in a funk. And the nature of the plot and prose felt decades older than it was -- in some points, almost Victorian, once you leave aside the setting details and some of the themes. Taylor is interested in having her characters play specific roles, it seems, and with a few exceptions (eg Hermione) we never get a sense of them as three-dimensional characters. The title character of Angel is clearly meant to be monomaniacal -- she becomes the epitome of a crazy cat lady -- and yet while Taylor takes us just enough inside her head to show us how her obsession with imagination vs reality began (and how the former ended up becoming vastly more important, so that reality was never allowed to intrude), we only occasionally get glimpses of a real person. I often felt that I was seeing enough inside to support what Taylor wanted me to see, but never the real character. That's not to say that it wasn't entertaining -- how could the tale of a 15-year-old girl writing larger-than-life, florid drivel and convincing others to take her seriously enough to become a Grande Dame of letters not be? But from early on, it was clear that all this grandiloquency would End In Tears, and that kind of ate into my enjoyment of the novel. I knew where the author was taking me, and I was being lead along a straight little avenue to the grave -- the very kind that Angel Deverell herself rejected. I'm very split on this novel -- some excellent writing and pungent observations, but... 3.75 stars. I'll probably read more by this author, but not for a while.

Thursday's Children by Rumer Godden is a re-read of one of my favorite books by this author, set against the world of ballet training. Doone and his elder sister Crystal are the children of a greengrocer; their mother is a classic stage mom, with big dreams for Crystal that risk spoiling her and her dancing technique; could Doone, overlooked, actually end up the greater star? Crystal can truly be her own worst enemy, self-important and with a big feeling of entitlement, but beneath it all talent and a real love for dance, even though she can be far more distracted than Doone, who turns out to live for ballet but must struggle, against his parents' reluctance and his sister's envy. Doone, perhaps, is a little too good to be true, but I found the story holds up well and is a great read if you're a ballet fan. 3.9 stars.

A Thread of Grace is Mary Doria Russell's immensely successful attempt to turn into fiction another, more recent, set of historical events: the period from the capitulation of Mussolini's regime in 1943 to the Allies and through the Nazi direct control of Italy, to the final end of the war in early 1945. So, this covers about 18/20 months, and it does so through a variety of eyes: some Jews who are Italian born (and whose ancestors have lived in Piedmont, in the north of Italy, for many centuries); some Jews who flee Nice and other parts of Italian-occupied France across the Alps into northern Italy to escape the SS and Gestapo; some Italians who resist the Germans locally and a German doctor who we meet in the first pages, who has seen too much of what is being hidden about the fate of the Jews. It's a bleak story; as liberation comes closer, the violence escalates and the deaths multiply. But it's compelling and vivid and I couldn't put it down. 4.5 stars.

Letter of Marque by Patrick O'Brian is the next in the Aubrey/Maturin series, which I had to move right on to listening to because the last one ended on such a cliffhanger -- would Maturin and Sir Joseph Blaine catch the spies and clear Jack Aubrey's name? Well, Aubrey is still under a shadow, and sailing as a "private man of war" (aka privateer) but has some astonishing successes; fate finally seems to be swinging his way. And we see Maturin's attempt to win Diana back. No spoilers, although I'll say that at least this time I didn't feel as if I was being left in suspense, so that I can quite readily take a break from the series for a little while!! 3.9 stars.

I used to love reading Rumor Godden when I was a teen. My mother would read the books too so we could talk about them. She's the one that got me into them. I'm thinking Thursday's Children goes on the WL. It's always nice to revisit a favorite author - although oddly, I don't remember details, just the warm, quiet feeling of many of her stories.

Just catching up here Suz, and hope that you're having a nice Sunday!

Hello, all! Had an exhausted Sunday after dashing back and forth to Providence on a preliminary apartment hunting expedition.

The next book....

A Dying Fall by Elly Griffiths is the next instalment (to be released in early March, I think?) in the mystery series featuring forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway. Ruth is roped in to investigate some mysterious bones after the sudden death of a former university classmate who had discovered them, in a suspicious house fire. There's some interesting historical context for the possible identity of the bones, but they do kind of slip into the background, with Ruth doing only perfunctory archaeological explorations in this book. Instead, she is being stalked by people sending Warning Messages that unaccountably she doesn't share with the cops. Not as strong as some of the other books, but I like Griffiths' ability to create characters, so I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt and a 3.9 star rating.

Being a little nosy - Providence, RI?

#63 Yup! Am thinking of making another trip up in the next week or 10 days. The apartment I went to look at wasn't good, but compared to NY, the rental costs are amazingly low in the neighborhoods that I'd like, and I liked the vibe of the city. I'll probably make some more calls/contacts on this tomorrow -- it is startling how rapidly time can flee past.

RI's pretty small - obviously so I can say - just up the road aways from me (I live in N Kingstown and work in Cranston) If you need any info, just give me a holler.

Thanks!! I will def. take you up on that! I'm probably going up in a week or ten days to take a look at another apartment. It is so astonishingly affordable compared to NYC...

The Golden Scales by Parker Bilal is an excellent mystery, beautifully written (the author's moniker is a pseudonym; he is Sudanese/British, Jamal Mahjoub, and it's set against the backdrop of Cairo in about 1998, which means Mubarak still has a firm grip on the country even as the Muslim Brotherhood are revolting. Makana, his protagonist, is an exile from Khartoum and we learn slowly (at just the right time, in the right way) how that happened and what happened to his own family. In this novel, Makana ends up tackling, as a freelance investigator, two other cases of missing children: the 4 year old daughter of an English woman who vanished in Cairo back in 1981; and the death of the protegee of a Cairo tough turned powerbroker, Saad Hanafi. The young man is a footballer, a key member of Hanafi's team, but there is more to his disappearance and his identity than that. An excellent balance between the mystery/tension and the characters. I'm elated that I just got the e-galley of book #2 in this series, and I'll be looking for the authors non-mystery novels, too -- the writing here is excellent. A great discovery! 4.4 stars.

Ooh, Chatterbox, good luck with the apartment hunting! I went to Providence College (go Friars!) and really enjoyed living in the city. It's not huge, but I found there was plenty to do.

Child of the Morning by Pauline Gedge is a book that I vividly remember reading in my teens, I think, roughly when it first came out in paperback in Canada. It has been years since I picked it up, as the paperback in question was poorly bound and since has fallen apart at the seams. It's the story of Hatshepsut, daughter of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Thutmose I, who names her his heir, and her struggle to rule independently. It's a moving story, especially in the final chapters as Hatshepsut realizes that her young male heir will no longer be content to wait peacefully on the sidelines and that there likely will be no happy ending for her and her coterie of loyal supporters. Did it happen as Gedge portrays? Well, ancient Egyptian scholarship has moved on in the last 35/40 years, and the ending may not have been precisely as Gedge depicts it, but it's not impossible and it certainly is of a piece with the story as we know it to be. And Gedge does an amazing job of capturing life in ancient Egypt as it would have been lived some 3,600 years ago... (Just think, we are probably closer in time to Attila the Hun or Constantine than either were to Hatshepsut...) A thumping good read, now reissued and available on Kindle. Am happy to see a lot of Gedge's books now are on Kindle, so I imagine I will be re-reading more of them this year. 4.2 stars.

I loved Child of the Morning when I was a kid! I've been wanting to reread, but I've been scared that I'd be disappointed. Sounds like it might be worth a try after all. Thanks!

Eva -- definitely try it. I may go back to his "Oasis Road" trilogy, and revisit that. It's just become available for Kindle and is very good (much more recent -- Child of the Morning was Gedge's debut).

Some underwhelming books, now, I'm afraid:

The Racketeer by John Grisham -- I clearly have never really recovered from reading The Firm, the epitome of a thumping good read. Grisham will never write eloquently or develop convincing characters, but at his best his pacing and plots can be tremendously entertaining. This one isn't his best... Grisham's character, Malcolm, aka Max, is trying to spring secrets on us, the reader, just as he does on his adversaries in the novel, but it just comes across as a clunky story of a too-smart lawyer caught up in an implausible scheme who then structures his own implausible scheme, while taking revenge on the authorities and the bad guys. If you want to read fantasy, read fantasy; if you want Grisham, re-read The Firm or the Runaway Jury. Avoid this clunker with its clumsy attempt to develop an unreliable narrator. 2.8 stars

The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan did an interesting job of using a young dancer at the Paris Opera to explore the entire world of late 19th century Paris (pre-dreyfus affair) and in particular the burgeoning eugenics movement, as put forth in literary form by Zola. (Marie's elder sister, Antoinette, appears in a staged version of L'Assomoir in this novel, and Marie herself is tormented by the conviction that her narrow and ugly face reflect an inner evil, as those at the time were prone to suggest. That occasionally gets a bit heavy handed, and there's too much telegraphing of these Big Themes and not enough devoted to making the backdrop more convincing than the author's description of a Degas painting of one of the scenes that Marie and Antoinette inhabit in real life. Buchanan's use of language, too, is a bit overwrought, and the staccato phrasing and poor grammar (after all, we are reminded, this is Paris's underclass speaking!!) become wearing over 350 pages. Interesting but not engrossing. 3.6 stars

Completely agree about The Racketeer. I wasn't sure if the books wasn't working for me since it was an audio book and maybe I was missing some nuances. At first it was interesting and then it just kept going on and on with way too many "look at how clever I am" moments.

Too bad The Painted Girls wasn't better, and that title is unfortunate if it is meant to say the girls of Degas' painting. Makes them sound like hookers.

@ 72 -- Haha, that was my first thought too!

LOL re painted girls/ladies!! Indeed, I think the author meant the art works and not facial paint, although the eldest sister did end up briefly indulging in something of that kind...

Another quick update:

The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin was significantly better than I had expected. I had feared a repeat of The Paris Wife -- or the wave of other books about "women behind famous men who aren't royalty in the 20th century" that appears to be sweeping over the publishing world. The Paris Wife was a meh read for me, and I kept feeling that the idea was interesting enough that everyone got excited about that and could overlook the flaws in the writing. In this case, the writing is very good indeed, so if you are interested in the complexities of the Lindberghs, this makes for a great read. The author's decision to have it read as if written partly in retrospect, with a bit of an omniscient voice, helps address the issue of "how could she have been so weak as to put up with this??" I've never been really caught up in the whole Lindbergh thing, but found this very intriguing indeed. 4.3 stars.

The 13-Gun Salute by Patrick O'Brian, in which our fearless heroes set off on an official mission -- only to be recalled and sent off in a different direction! This time, it's to SE Asia, which gives the author lots of opportunities to deal with the culture of the Malay peninsula, some fun encounters with orangutans, and dealing with an official envoy with folie de grandeur... Ends on a cliffhanger, so I've had to start the next one -- shucks. 4 stars. This was #13, and the series ends at #20, so at some point this year, I will be coping with withdrawal symptoms... This was cool, as I "met" Stanford Raffles, whose bio I will be reading later on this year, I hope.

...and one more book!

Ashes and Diamonds by Jerzy Andrzejewski is a fascinating novel set over the span of a few days just as peace is formally declared in Europe in May 1945. Its location is a town or small city in already-liberated Poland, 'liberated', that is, by the Soviets. Already, even as peace is declared, new violence is erupting, as former partisans become anti-Soviet partisans and others become officials in the new regime -- simultaneously, people are forced to consider what it is that has happened and what will happen next. At the heart of the story is the Kossecki family: the father, interned at Grosse Rosen concentration camp, has survived, but at what price? Meanwhile, one son is caught up in a group of partisans who now are opposing the Soviet takeover, while the other is caught up in a group of young anarchists. It's an ensemble piece, which brings with it some weaknesses; I also kept imagining it as a stage play of sorts, despite the large cast. Fascinating vignette of the immediate aftermath of war & the conflict of ideologies, recommended by Cushla (Cushlareads). 4.3 stars

I finished my last Patrick O'Brian quite a few years ago and I am still having withdrawal pains. i loved that series and have enjoyed revisiting it with you as you read through it.

Judy, oh dear... I'm nearly finished with The Nutmeg of Consolation now...

Meanwhile:

Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer was a re-read of the first Heyer that I ever read (lent to me by my teacher in England when I was about 10, I think). I probably re-read it after that, but I certainly haven't tried it in years, as it was quickly supplanted as my favorite Heyer by several other books, so in many ways it was almost like reading it for the first time. On the other hand, while I don't remember what made me think of it as a 'meh' title back then, there were elements I didn't like this time, such as Worth's patronizing attitude even when he falls in love with Judith -- still too much "I'm the boss" for my taste. On the other hand, the plot is a little darker (including a murder plot) than I had remembered, which made it a little more intriguing. 3.6 stars.

The Life of Objects by Susanna Moore is an odd little novel, just released in the last month or two. The narrator is Beatrice, who prefers to think of herself as Maeve. But then the young Irish girl has a vivid imagination in general, much of it revolving around ways of getting out of her small town. Eventually, a visiting aristocrat spots her lace in a store in the town, and whisks her off to Berlin as a "present" for a friend, said to be passionately fond of lace. Beatrice ends up as part of the house of the wealthy and aristocratic Felix and Dorothea, but it's 1938, and even if Dorothea were that interested in lace, events overtake them all. Felix has pissed off the Nazi regime by refusing to take a post in Madrid, and so they leave Berlin for the family's country estate, where they sit out the war. But the end of the conflict is no panacea, either... Beatrice starts the novel as hopelessly naive and oblivious, and learns the realities of life only VERY slowly; in general, the novel is impeccably written but somehow distant from real emotions. The reader is allowed to drift along on the surface, making for an odd juxtaposition between the violence of war and the heremtic existence the household is leading on the estate, on which reality occasionally impinges. There were moments that were striking and powerful, but much of the novel kind of passes from one month or year to the next. I admire this novel and I read it straight through without pausing, but it didn't move me as powerfully as it might have and I still feel distant from Beatrice, despite the first person narration covering seven years of her life. Not sure whether to recommend it or not... It's a very different book from City of Women by David Gilham, despite covering the same time frame from the POV of a woman in Germany. 3.8 stars.

The Nutmeg of Consolation is # 14 in the rapidly-running-out Aubrey/Maturin series, which I'm listening to on audiobook. It's actually amazing how much ground Patrick O'Brian covers in these books: this one begins with fending off vicious Dayaks while stranded on an island, then heading off to Batavia and another encounter with Raffles; a rendezvous with the Surprise, and then to Botany Bay, where Stephen discovers what has happened to his former loblolly boy (don't ask...), Padeen, transported for theft. It ends just as Stephen learns of the birth of a baby -- and has an unfortunate encounter with a duck-billed platypus. I kind of miss the espionage sub-theme, but I'm sure we'll get back to it. 4 stars

The Gershwins and Me by Michael Feinstein is a long and detailed chronicle of the famous brothers, who wrote some of my favorite music. It's a big giant book that I've been dipping into since around Christmas time and now finally have finished; Feinstein knows his subjects and their music (and the book includes a great CD!) but while this makes a great coffee table book to read in segments, I wouldn't suggest that anyone except an avid, die-hard music fan really pick it up to read seriously. For starters, Feinstein is a Big Fan; another thing is that it's simply unwieldy! I may add it to my library at some point, but not at the current price (this was a library copy). 3.8 stars

The Habits of the House by Fay Weldon is an OK but hardly dramatically fresh or exciting novel too blatantly aimed at piggybacking on the Downton Abbey phenomena and making it more real and less soap opera-ish. If anyone is entitled to do this, I suppose it's Weldon, as she wrote the pilot script for Upstairs Downstairs. But still... Her protagonists are the Earl of Dilberne, his countess and their two children, the viscount and Lady Rosina. The Earl spends money recklessly and is in debt to a social climbing Jewish banker who wants his wife invited to dine chez Dilberne; Arthur, the heir, loves steam engines and his mistress; Rosina loves Big Ideas like Fabian socialism. Then arrive the O'Briens, wife and daughter of a wealthy cattle merchant from Chicago... It's an old story, and Weldon tries to make it more true to life by having the lady's maid have a fling with a hotel concierge to bring back the scoop on heiresses for the countess, including details of Rosina's coldness and unhappiness, and the eventual decision by Arthur to have a menage a trois with his mistress (who happens to have been the former mistress of his father). But just adding seedy to the soap opera doesn't really make it more compelling; none of the characters are detailed or interesting enough to become emotionally engaged in their doings. I'm intrigued enough to seek out the promised two sequels as they appear, but strictly from the library. 3.5 stars; meh. Thankfully, it was an Amazon Vine ARC, so no $$ investment required!

Two more OK reads:

The Truelove by Patrick O'Brian is #16 in the series to which I have become addicted, one which has a second title, Clarissa Oakes. A young woman escapes from Botany Bay by smuggling herself aboard the Surprise, and ends up marrying the man who helped her, Oakes. But she proves to be just as disruptive as Jack Aubrey always feared women would be aboard, even though Aubrey is the last to realize it. Interesting twist, but not one of the better books in the series and sometimes feels like some 1970s formula fiction for men. 3.75 stars

The Night Ranger by Alex Berenson takes the author's hero, John Wells, into unfamiliar territory in northern Kenya and Somalia, where four college-age US volunteers at a refugee camp vanish en route to a holiday on Lamu. Who kidnapped them? And can Wells rescue them before it's too late? It's a little more sophisticated than one might fear, as Berenson nods in the direction of the myriad groups with different objectives (financial/ideological) operating in the region, even as it ends up being a fairly conventional 'shoot 'em up' conclusion with cardboard characters and a hero who rides off into the sunset. If you've been reading the series or following what is happening in the region (big Kenyan election happening right now...) this is a somewhat interesting and minimally demanding book to read. 3.7 stars

The Firebird by Susanna Kearsley was a feel-good/comfort read, good choice for being headachey and stressed out. This is a kind of sequel to The Winter Sea (published elsewhere under the title "Sophia's Secret"), so read that one first... As with many of Kearsley's novels, this one goes back and forth between the past and present; her present day character has an ability to read the past by touching objects and when a client brings in a carved bird claiming it was the 18th century gift to an ancestress from a Russian empress, Nicola can tell that it's the truth. But there's no provenance -- and Nicola realizes, touching the scarf that the visitor helpfully leaves behind, how desperately the woman needs the money that the carved firebird would fetch if could be authenticated. So she sets off to use her skills, and those of her ex, to try to verify the tale. That's when we begin learning the story of Anna, daughter of a Jacobite rebel who must leave Scotland for the continent at a young age. Nicola and Rob follow in her footsteps centuries later, traveling to Belgium, France and on to Russia, in search of the truth of the little carved bird. I generally like Kearsley's tales, but while compelling this one really strained credulity -- every step of the way Rob and Nicola just happen to be able to tap into what happened in the past thanks to their psychic gifts, with never a miss. Had I not already read & enjoyed the book that dealt with Sophia, or liked the author's other books, or been in the mood for something undemanding, I probably would have given up in annoyance. As it was, I still liked this although the implausibility factor is high. You just need to enjoy it for what it is. 3.5 stars, for the author's fans only.

The Wine-Dark Sea by Patrick O'Brian is #16 in the Aubrey/Maturin series, and the third covering a very long circumnavigation of the world that has taken the two guys all around SE Asia and Latin America, with MANY misadventures -- shipwrecks, cannibals, political conspiracies, pirates, icebergs, betrayals, Stephen losing toes in an Andean snowstorm, etc. This one starts out with a volcanic eruption and ends with them losing their rudder. I'm a little worried, as O'Brian seems to have stopped talking about the two Melanesian girls (aged about 6 and 8?) that the crew of the Surprise adopted after their island was wiped out by smallpox. I really liked Sarah and Emily as characters, but they no longer pop up in the final third of this book, making me slightly irritable. In the next, the duo finally get back to England. I'm hoping there will be more great spy stuff. This wasn't one of the best books in the series, so I'm giving it 3.7 stars.

Dead Water by Ann Cleeves is the latest in what I guess we can't call the Shetland Quartet any longer, as Cleeves has added another episode to the saga of Jimmy Perez, detective in that remote cluster of Islands. I'll try not to give any spoilers about the preceding books, so I'll just say that Perez is recovering from a trauma, when another murder takes place in the Shetlands. This time, the victim is a prodigal son of the local hotelier, who jilted his pregnant girlfriend and went off to London to start a career. His trip back proves short-lived -- and then there's a second victim. Cleeves has a knack for characters and settings that I really enjoy, and this was a worthy addition to the series, with Sandy (the constable) finding his feet, a new inspector with a quirky background of her own, and the revelation of some secrets held by the "Fiscal", or top judicial authority in the islands. 4.2 stars

Dissolution by C.J. Sansom is the first in this series, which I didn't really discover until I read Sovereign, book #3. I ended up alternating between the audiobook (excellent) and the Kindle version, and found the audiobook made me more aware of the complexities of character than the intriguing plot enabled me to pick up when I was reading. Clearly, the author begins the series with a more cynical view of his hero, hunchbacked lawyer Matthew Shardlake, an avid reformer in Henry VIII's era and unquestioning servant of Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell dispatches him to investigate the murder of another of his commissioners at a remote monastery and to get the abbot to agree to turn the institution over to the crown -- the era of "papists" is at an end. Ultimately, it isn't just the monastery that will be dissolved, but Shardlake's naivety and certainty about the world. Am glad I alternated btwn the audiobook and the book book -- definitely recommend both as giving excellent and nuanced insight into the era. 4.6 stars.

I do like the character of Matthew Shardlake though I've only read the first two books in the series. I plan on returning to it sometime this year.

Wolfy, then you have read the two that I haven't! I'll try to read Dark Fire later this year.

The Commodore by Patrick O'Brian is book #17 in the Aubrey/Maturin series, which means I now only have three left to go. After their very long circumnavigation of the world (the three previous books) Aubrey and Maturin end up facing a less than joyful homecoming, but soon enough are back at sea and heading down the African coast to deal with slavers before cruising off to stop a French invasion of Ireland. The nautical stuff felt rather more perfunctory this time and the whole thing felt a bit rushed. Still, I'm addicted to the series, so what can I do but read on?? 3.8 stars

Black Irish by Stephan Talty, on the other hand, was even better than I had expected. The author paints a bleak, bleak portrait of a Rust Belt city in the shape of Buffalo in the winter, where Abbie Kearney, adopted as a toddler by an Irish cop in "the County" -- an Irish-American neighborhood so insular that in spite of Abbie's "black Irish" looks, she is viewed as a cuckoo in the nest -- has returned to care for her father and to work for Buffalo's police department. A man from the County is brutally murdered, and the investigation takes Abbie into her past and into the heart of the County's deepest secrets, tied to the battle waged by Irish nationalists against the British in the home country -- and, it turns out, in Buffalo. There are a few flaws and not much that is dramatically new here, but I thought the setting and the level of detail more than compensated, and turned this into a bleakly compelling debut mystery -- a thumping good read. Recommended. 4.2 stars.

Oh dear, don't go look at my review of Black Irish - I detested that book. :)

OK, Eva, I won't -- but here is one that I detested!

All the Light There Was by Nancy Kricorian was a deeply, deeply underwhelming novel that ended up sounded like a desultory edited diary. Set in Paris during WW2, it's a coming of age story narrated by a young Armenian woman. So much potential for a great story about the Occupation from the POV of a group whose experiences gave birth to the concept of genocide, and much of it squandered in a strangely dispassionate and unemotional recitation that kind of lurches from "and then I did this" to "and then I did that". It's all hampered by comments like "we found out after the war that..." and "it took me years to understand that..." Still, it takes a lot to turn the raw events in this book into something that made me yawn. 2.25 stars. Don't bother.

We ordered Black Irish for the library's leased book collection. We always have people looking for books with Ireland settings. We'll see how it checks out and how well it is liked (or disliked).

I loved the setting of Black Irish, but I'm with Eva - I thought the main character was being stupid just to move the plot along.

& thanks for warning us all away from All the Light There Was.

The Yellow Admiral by Patrick O'Brian starts out on a hopeful note, especially for Stephen -- back from Spain with his wife and daughter, now healthy and lively, and they seem destined to be a happy little family, Diana's wildness notwithstanding. But both he and Jack face financial struggles, and Jack is worried about being sidelined -- allowed to become an admiral but not given a command of the red, blue or white squadron. It doesn't help that he is making powerful enemies both in Parliament and at sea, as he returns to a blockade patrol. An interesting enough book, but not up to par for the series. 3.7 stars

The Hundred Days by Patrick O'Brian does something unforgivable -- introduces a major tragedy for one character in the series, through events that happen offstage and are only referred to indirectly thereafter. It's VERY annoying, and a cop-out. There are theories about why O'Brian did this, but (a) it wasn't a necessary plot device and (b) if he felt the urge to make the plot move, he could at least have brought the reader face to face with it. OK, some later parts of this book are quite good -- after Napoleon's escape from Elba, the two friends end up charging all over the Mediterranean and Adriatic, trying to prevent a shipment of Arab gold from reaching Napoleonic mercenaries. There's a great scene involving a lion hunt. But I'm still irked. 3.5 stars

The Marseille Caper by Peter Mayle is a typical frothy romp that devotes as much time to the details of food and wine as it does to plot, where the baddie-baddies are clear and obvious but where you know the goody-goodies will come out ahead. Sam teams up with an old adversary to front his pitch for a new development in a cove on the fringes of Marseille, and finds he faces unscrupulous opposition from a corrupt local politico and a greedy English press baron/mogul. With the help of his gorgeous girlfriend, French journalist buddy and a cast of random characters including a British expat and teacher with unexpected talents for impersonation, however, Sam will triumph. Nice 'n fluffy 'n fun 'n undemanding.

The latter was badly needed as I've been battling the flu -- high fever, etc. etc.

Oooo - I'd be tempted by the O'Brian books if it weren't for that unforgivable bit. Napoleonic mercenaries? Lion hunts? So, here's the big question. Will you forgive him and keep with the series?

Cammykitty, there is only one book remaining in the series of 20, and having come this far, I've definitely become addicted (thanks in large part to Patrick Tull's narration of the audiobooks, I think!)

The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner isn't really the book that it is described on its blurb/jacket. It feels more like an artistic experiment -- the story of young 'Reno' (we never learn her real name) who, arriving in New York City circa 1976 to pursue her art, ends up instead being buffeted around and doing little more than just reacting to those around her, letting them shape her actions and decisions. When she does try to craft a more independent path, such as the time she sets off on a motorbike to race the salt flats, it ends abruptly (literally and rhetorically). This odd reluctance of a young woman who is portrayed as being feisty and independent to act in that way is a literary device/conceit that works only periodically, making this a frustrating novel for me to read. The settings work better, and I assume that the fact that I wanted to bash together the heads of the self-absorbed and self-referential artists of Reno's New York circle is a sign that Kushner wields a convincing pen. (Although I sometimes felt as if the words I was reading were just as self-absorbed and self-referential...) The segment in Italy, where Reno goes as the newly anointed world's fastest woman (after a race on the salt flats aboard a vehicle custom-built by her boyfriend's family's Italian firm) only to find herself, her goals and her achievement a sideshow, were more interesting. But even here Reno seems to drift, and it's left unclear what, if anything we're meant to conclude from all this. Beautiful writing, but I felt as if I'd been asked to pass judgment on a modernist work of art and that someone failed to provide me with the dictionary I would need to interpret its basic vocabulary. The writing was impressive, the author clearly briliant and talented, yet never did I feel I was seeing the world through Reno's eyes or forget that I was seeing Reno through Kushner's. To me, a big flaw, however great the talent. 3.7 stars.

The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor is an ARC I have had sitting around for a while, shamefully enough. It turns out to be a rather good book -- the main character, a bookseller in London circa early 1780s has lost his wife and child, and has embarked on a crusade to prove that ghosts don't exist. A noblewoman calls his bluff, and asks him to convince her son, who has gone mad after seeing a ghost, that no such ghost exists. Rich in period detail, including Cambridge college politics of the era and definitely a twisty turning plot that works even when we know who the bad guy is (or one of 'em, anyway). There are a few kind of mysteries here, all intriguing enough. 4 stars.

The Beekeepers' Apprentice by Laurie King was read for my own TIOLI challenge for this month, in which participants have to pick a book suggested by someone else as one of their favorites; a book that everyone should read. Despite my skepticism, I ended up really enjoying it. I'm not a big fan of fan fiction, but this is really more about Mary Russell, Sherlock Holmes's teenage protegee, who comes of age over the course of the novel. The denouement comes too much out of the blue -- there aren't enough clues to the real identity of Holmes's nemesis -- but it's still a good yarn and despite the hints of a romance blooming between 20 year old Mary and and Sherlock Holmes, in his 50s (which kinda creeps me out...) I'll probably go on and read the next in the series. 4.1 star

The Jackal's Share by Chris Morgan Jones is the sequel to a novel I read last year about Russian oligarchs -- a thriller of sorts, featuring Ben Webster, investigator and PR guru. This time around Webster gets caught up in a nasty affair when an Iranian expat billionaire asks Webster's firm to investigate himself -- and give him a clean bill of health. There's much more there than the billionaire ever expects Webster to uncover, and as the investigation proceeds, it gets uglier and scarier for all concerned. The plot isn't always as watertight as it could be, but the author is dealing in an interesting business and has such interesting characters that I minded less than I should have done otherwise. 3.9 stars.

Ironic, I just read another review on a Mary & Sherlock book. I've never read the series. Sounds like I might have to check it out, but yes, 20 + 50 sounds a bit unequal to say the least, but historically? I'm sure it was more common back then since the man was often expected to be established before marrying. Although I'm sure in the 1800s it was becoming less common than before. Sherlock romantically involved with anyone is a stretch for me. ;)

#96 by Chatterbox> wow. I didn't get any 'hints' about their relationship being romantic. more father - daughter. I've only read The Beekeeper's Apprentice though so I'm no expert.

Majkia -- it's in the intensity of the relationship, and one or two of the hints dropped along the way. But I think I'm correct, based on the description of the next book, which now is residing on my Kindle. We shall see!

Dark Fire by CJ Sansom is the second mystery in the fab Matthew Shardlake series; as mentioned previously, I didn't really start reading them until #3, Sovereign, so I have gone back to remedy this while I wait for the next to appear. I've been listening to them on audiobook, and finding even more to appreciate -- the nuances jump out, and I feel as if I'm living in Tudor England. In this outing, Shardlake is commissioned by Cromwell, under siege from his enemies, to find out what happened to the promise that he would get the secret of Greek Fire, a renowned Byzantine weapon. Shardlake discovers far more, including a great deal of human evil, makes some powerful enemies and struggles to rescue a young woman from what seems like an inevitable hanging after her young cousin is found dead. Oddly, I figured out the criminal in that case in the first pages, if not why... I've enjoyed the audiobook versions of the first two books so much that I went on to download Sovereign and will listen to it while I deal with some of the hellacious packing that lies ahead. 4.4 stars. Definitely recommended if you're interested in great historical fiction/historical mysteries.

There are only five books (so far) in this series and I have enjoyed them all!

Mamzel -- I have just re-read #3 (again, the audiobook) and purchased an audio version of #4.

The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro was an enjoyable book to read, even though looking back on it, it's a rather skeletal plot and has thinly-delineated characters as well as some overly-familiar tropes. We follow Grace Munroe as she receives a mysterious legacy from a woman she has never heard of in 1955 Paris, and then Eva d'Orsey, her benefactress, in the years leading up to 1955, exposing the connection between them. The big surprise/twist isn't, with one improbable exception. Still, this was a fun book to read, well enough written chick lit and an interesting setting. 3.5 stars, and I remain highly ambivalent, clearly!! For my categories challenge.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, also for my 2013 categories challenge, is the first book where I'm slightly out of the consensus in that I didn't love/adore it. It's an interesting tale, and the twists here do work. The problem, I think, is that I have read too much about the SOE, both fiction and non-fiction, and this tale of two friends caught in occupied France in late 1943 pales in comparison with the reality. There was some clever writing and structuring, but I felt that the two heroines came across a bit too much like breathless girls than the kinds of women who were involved in this in reality. If you loved this book, read Sarah Helm's bio of Vera Atkins, the real-life SOE exec. Not only was she a dramatically interesting character in her own right, but I found her postwar quest to identify what happened to "her girls" far more moving, ultimately. 3.75 stars.

You're not alone on Code Name Verity. While I enjoyed it, I didn't love it like so many others seemed to. The book on Vera Atkins sounds really interesting - I've added it to my wishlist and hope to get to it someday. Hopefully sooner rather than later!

Moving has wreaked havoc on my life, and I'm only just getting around to catching up with this thread (I have more or less kept up with my 75-challenge thread, if not always in real time...)

The Passing Bells by Phillip Rock was a rediscovery of an author I read in the early 80s (and who has since died); this is the first in a trilogy that has been given a second life by the success of Downton Abbey on TV and I was delighted to see it has held up so well. 4.2 stars and def. recommended to fans of that series.

Snuff by Terry Pratchett is the last in the "city watch" series of novels set in Ankh Morpork/Discworld. To my dismay, I shall have to take refuge in other corners of Pratchett's imagination.... 4.1 stars.

Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith is an amusing short novel/series of linked stories featuring Prof. von Igelfeld (sp??) and his passion for irregular verbs, which will tell you (among other things) how he ended up shifting away from ancient Irish to Portuguese. Very witty. 3.9 stars.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson is a novel I wanted to like more than I did, but the structure, while intellectually intriguing, kept getting in the way. A struggle to finish. 3.7 stars, definitely excellent writing, but...

Revenge Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger is the sequel to THAT novel, and a must-read for fans of the original, if only to see what happens to the characters. There really isn't any other reason to read it; it's amusing but banal and full of improbable plot twists and stuff that goes nowhere. Not as taut a narrative as it should be, but hey, a free book from BookExpo, signed, no less, so I should stop griping! 3.4 stars.

Elders: A Novel by Ryan McIlvain sounded interesting and was, even if the secondary characters weren't as well realized as the Elders of the title, young Mormon men in their early 20s trying to convert the Brazilians to the LDS faith. The best part of the book is the juxtaposition of the two characters: one a Brazilian convert, fervent yet disadvantaged, eager to get to the United States; the other a young American man, restless and yet privileged by being raised in his faith by his family and with the world at his feet. The clash between them that follows weeks of mutual incomprehension is vividly portrayed and completely convincing: both and yet neither win our sympathy. 4.2 stars.

Elders sounds interesting. Also, I have Portuguese Irregular Verbs on my TBR shelf, so I'm glad you liked it!

Books read, which I'll need to post notes on soon!! Still waaay behind...

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon was a galley I picked up at BookExpo, much buzzed about, the first in a series of seven books, by a young Oxbridge student. Set in the future, in a dystopian world, featuring a young woman with the ability to "dreamwalk", who is kidnapped by an alien race and taken to... Oxford, now home on earth to said race. It's fast-moving, but it's not the hunger games, and while sometimes interesting it didn't do much for me, really. 3.2 stars.

The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud is likely to be one of those divisive novels, with some people enjoying it and others loathing it. I really liked it, in part because the opening chapter, in which narrator Nora Eldridge eloquently and bitterly lays bare for us her anger as the woman upstairs, invisible, helpful, charming, smiling, wearing a mask, completely grabbed my attention. In her early 40s, Nora (single and childless, dreams of creating art largely behind her) is a raging fury disguised as a third grade teacher, and over the course of the book we realize what has made her so: the Shahid family, each of whose members brings her to the brink of realizing some facet missing in her life and yet who ultimately betray her. But then, Nora is also an unreliable narrator... Not a likeable character, but a fascinating one, even though the emotional melodrama is at heart rather banal in nature and something most of us with imagination and intellect must deal with in some way. Recommended, guardedly. 4.4 stars.

Bitter Almonds by Laurence Cosse is another great novel from the folks at Europa, whom I have come to rely on to deliver interesting looks at what I think of as 'the new Europe', in which traditional bourgeois French/Italians/Germans confront the realities of immigrant populations. In it, Edith, a translator and professional, discovers that her cleaner, a Moroccan woman, is illiterate and volunteers to teach her to read and write. The challenge is insurmountable, but while the novel's 'face' is about that, its real themes have more to do with the ability of two women to form a connection across apparently insurmountable barriers. Short, and for an interested/thoughtful reader, very rewarding. 4.2 stars.

Blood and Beauty by Sarah Dunant is a decent historical novel focused on the early years of the Borgia clan (i.e. after Rodrigo Borgia's election as pope, but before his death.) Apparently, a sequel is to follow. I enjoyed this: it's a balanced look at the family, as Lucrezia gradually realizes just how unbalanced her brother, Cesare, truly is. Cesare doesn't come out of it well, but the treatment of the other family members is probably very accurate, and it's a very sympathetic portrayal of Lucrezia, a relative innocent trying to shake off the reputation of the family and make a life for herself. 3.9 stars.

Margot by Jillian Cantor was provocative and interesting, as it starts from the premise that Margot Frank survived the death camps and is living in Philadelphia under an assumed name when her younger sister's diary is published and the movie of the diary of Anne Frank appears in cinemas... It's an improbable scenario and the reasons why Margot/Margie isn't in touch with her father are also improbable, but that aside, it's an interesting look at what it might have been like to be the big sister of Anne, living in her shadow in both life and death. Other than that, a bit banal. This is an ARC from BookExpo, not sure of publication timing. 3.8 stars.

The Kill List by Frederick Forsyth was an OK book for fans of the author, but his tendency to discourse on procedures and processes involved in spying weighed on the narrative too much. It worked in his earlier books, when it was offset by characters and action, but now they feel like a cross between a novel and non-fiction. This story (an ARC from Amazon for me) involves everything from a fundamentalist preacher to drones and Somali pirates. 3.4 stars,

I'll be interested to see your thoughts on the Sarah Dunant, I've read one of hers and am interested in eventually getting to some of her others.

What did you think of The Woman Upstairs? I liked it but thought it a bit uneven at times.

I agree with you, Stacy; it was so provocative right out of the gate that it instantly grabbed my attention. But it never really lived up to that early promise, IMHO. Still, I tend to enjoy unreliable narrators.

Alana -- I did like this quite a lot. Dunant makes Cesare genuinely scary by showing us Lucrezia's evolving understanding of him, which is very effective. The rest of the family she neither demonizes nor makes into pretty figurines. She also has done her research, without letting it weigh too much on the story. If you're not interested in papal politics and just want a bodice-ripper, however, this wouldn't be for you.

I have been shamefully neglecting this thread/group; with limited time at my disposal I've only been chronicling my reading over in the 75 group. Sigh...

A Fugue in Time by Rumer Godden is a book by this author that I didn't even know existed, so what a delight to discover it and that it was available for my UK Kindle! (It's a Virago.) That said, this isn't for newbies to Godden's style -- she darts back and forth in time, skipping from one era and character to the next without any logical break or sequence and leaving it for the reader to put all the pieces together. The plot is akin to that of China Court, although I don't think this is as good a book as that was. Still, for fans, it's fascinating: London in 1941, but then going back and even forward a bit in the history of both a house and a family. If you don't mind doing some work and having characters introduced as if you already knew them, and if you like Godden's books, well, here's another one! 3.9 stars

The Execution of Noa P. Singleton by Elizabeth Silver is a debut novel that I enjoyed more than a lot of people in spite of the utterly purplish, tortured prose with which the author sometimes afflicts the reader. Some exceptionally muddled metaphors. But the author somehow managed to make me care less than I should about that simply because I was so curious about the narrator: was she about to be unjustly executed? Was she guilty -- technically or really? The ultimate solution to this conundrum fell a bit flat and was more than a little simplistic, but getting there was fun. Suspenseful in a different kind of way. 3.25 stars.

The Shanghai Moon by S.J. Rozan is a book my mother sent me for my birthday about two years ago, or a little longer. I don't know why I didn't pick it up and read it before this -- certainly, I have intended to on many occasions. It turned out to be a rather good mystery, with lots of interesting characters: the story's roots are set in the Shanghai of the late 1930s and 1940s, revolving around a legendary gem created from a very old piece of jade belonging to a wealthy Chinese family and a diamond necklace that an 18 year old Austrian refugee, a Jew, smuggles out as one of the sole reminders of her family. What happened to their blended families and to the jewelry becomes the focus of a mystery and several crimes committed in Manhattan more than 60 years later. This is part of a series, and my score may have been higher had I started at the beginning; the author assumes we know the backstory of her two investigators, Lydia Chin and Bill Smith, and so their characters aren't developed all that well, despite the first person narration. 4 stars. I'm already seeking out some more in this series.

The Stone Carvers by Jane Urquhart is a book that I read it because it deals with the creation of the Vimy memorial near Arras, France (where I spent several summers as a guide to the underground tunnels and trenches; the author acknowledges the guides in her afterword, although her visit was 20 years after my final year working there.) That said, the bit about the creation of Vimy as it exists today is really only the final third of the book, with the first two thirds dealing with the experience of a brother and sister affected by the war in different ways, and who play a role in the creation of the monument. It's quirky and occasionally fantastical, particularly young Tilman's wanderlust, but the author's voice is always strong and her writing very evocative. I'll def. read some more by her. 4.25 stars.

Wildfire at Midnight by Mary Stewart is this author at her best. She set this novel, published in 1956, in 1953. In London, Coronation fever and Everest fever are sweeping the city but Gianetta Brooke just needs a place to get some rest and recharge her batteries, so she heads to Skye. Alas -- in a hotel full of interesting characters, she finds not only her ex-husband, but also a murderer at work. Vivid descriptions of the hills, completely convincing characters. It struck me while reading that this would make a fabulous BBC TV show, what with the 1950s setting, the mountains, and the various quirky characters. Hey, someone, get on this! 4.2 stars, a great re-read, exactly right for a way-too-hot day with too many scary Class A fireworks going off everywhere in the neighborhood, freaking me out and scaring the cats.

I have The Stone Carvers on my reading list for later this year and your review is telling me I'll probably enjoy it.

@ 109 -- I quite enjoyed Wildfire at Midnight too! What are your favorite Stewarts? So far I have really loved Madam, Will You Talk? and Nine Coaches Waiting.

Christina, one of my faves is set on the island of Corfu, and plays around a lot with the island as the setting for The Tempest -- Prospero, Mirando, Ariel, Caliban, etc. It's called This Rough Magic, the title being drawn from the play ("This rough magic I here abjure...") I also like The Moonspinners. I think Madam, Will You Talk? was one of the first books she wrote and an early one that I read; I liked it much more in my teens and 20s than I do today, when it strikes me as a bit misogynistic in some ways -- at least, the main character is relatively passive. There is another I don't remember well that is set in the Alps that I would like to re-read this year, Thunder on the Right.

Great reviews! I too liked The Stone Carvers. Wildfire at Midnight is in the Mary Stewart omnibus I've requested for the group read of Nine Coaches Waiting, so perhaps I'll read that one too while I have the book at my disposal.

@ 112 -- Thanks for the recommendations! I have read both This Rough Magic (which I also liked a lot!) and The Moonspinners, but I will have to check out Thunder on the Right.

All these comments on Mary Stewart books this month make me want to go back and re-read some of her works. It looks like she has held up well over time.

I keep falling behind not just on my reading for this challenge, but on reporting my reading for this challenge!! Grrr....

#115 -- yes, MS has held up reasonably well. Some of the situations are a bit jarring in the context of where women are in the early 21st century; her views clearly were shaped by the 1940s adn 1950s.

Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews, which is a very gripping and twisty spy thriller from a debut author and former CIA operative. His view of Putin's Russia appears to be that it is like Stalin's only without the Communist ideology, and his portrayal of Dominika, the young SVR spy, is interesting (although clearly based on a male fantasy at some points!) At the point midway through the book where most spy novels would have been wrapping up, Matthews is just getting going, and has plenty of twists and turns left for the reader. Oddly, each chapter DOES end with a recipe for some dish mentioned in that chapter (even more oddly, mentioning the dish never really disrupts the flow), but to my annoyance Matthews makes it impossible for any but a veteran cook to reproduce these as he doesn't specify quantities for his ingredients. Too bad, as I wouldn't mind trying some of them, but have limited tolerance for trial and error. Back to the book: Dominika's fate ends up entangled with that of a young American agent, Nathaniel Nash, as both set out to recruit each other. The twists get improbable, but not quite so much so as to make me incapable of suspending my disbelief, so the result was a thumping good read. Certainly, I much prefer this to the more recent novels of Daniel Silva and some other established spy writers, even while acknowledging that it ain't a literary tour de force, either. 4.1 stars

The Bat by Jo Nesbo is the first in the Harry Hole mysteries, although I can see why it has only just been translated. This is a novelist learning how to tell a story and doing well, by and large, but if it had been the first I had read I wouldn't have been in a big hurry to read more. It does fill in gaps in Hole's history, and make sense of references to events in Sydney noted in The Redbreast. Hole goes to Australia to help locals with an investigation into the death of a young Norwegian woman, teams up with an Aboriginal detective and starts asking unexpectedly complex questions about what is really going on. The book doesn't become really suspenseful until about midway through and for me the most interesting elements were the stories about Australia and the aboriginal legends. Mildly recommended; really only for series fans. 3.4 stars

Masaryk Station by David Downing is a powerful and suitable conclusion to this six-book series; while the first third feels a bit rambling and aimless (we know John and Effi will wind up in the midst of an early Cold War conflict, just how all these pieces will fit together is unclear and I really had to trust that Downing could pull it off), the final third is a fast-paced and explosive wrapup to the series. Somehow, the denouement feels appropriate: Downing has had a lot of time to ponder the fates of his major recurring characters, and nothing feels as if he had thought to himself, ok, gotta wrap up this loose end. This stands with the first couple of books in the series as an excellent read (although not a good stand-alone book; begin at the beginning with Zoo Station) and a big improvement on the rather mediocre Lehrter Station, its immediate predecessor. I won't try to get into the plot details, which involve such disparate elements as Russian defectors, the Allied "ratline" and the runup to the Berlin blockade along with the disillusionment of the German communists with Soviet rule, but will just say that when John Russell muses late in the book that in some ways the Nazi rule was a simpler era, when it was easier to know what you stood for and were fighting, the reader gets it. Oh, and if you read and enjoy this, there is a reference in here to Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler, which I found one of the most fascinating books, blending fictional narrative and political argument, back when I was in high school. That explores similar themes -- disillusionment with totalitarian regimes. Koestler ultimately committed suicide; this isn't nearly as bleak. 4.2 stars

An Extremely English Monsoon Wedding by Christina Jones is delightfully silly chick lit fluff. Jay's traditionally Indian parents decide to intervene at the last minute in his wedding to Erin in a tiny Berkshire village, and havoc ensues. Not as goofy or good as some of her books, but great bibliotherapy and a needed antidote to the heavy stuff I've been reading. 3.5 stars.

And the second one in Nesbø's Hole-series makes Norwegians look bad, so it's not completely surprising they started the translations with the third... :)

Good to know as I'm hoping to start this series soon. I'll know to keep going at least to book 3. (I really like to read in order)

#118 -- I did notice when I read The Redbreast that it made reference to events that clearly had been covered in prior books -- some kind of trauma in Harry's past related to Australia. I think that the first book is mediocre; #3 is quite good, in contrast. It's a little odd, actually, as I've tended to find that a debut novel tends to be good and that too often the second and third books are the most underwhelming. While many writers kind of go on cruising on their past reputation in later books, by all accounts, Nesbo has improved steadily. Interesting.

That is interesting. I usually like to start with an author's first novel because I assume they'll get better - at least until they reach a point where they don't have to bother any more because they're so famous (as in James Patterson for example). I still need to acquire #s 1&2 before I start so it won't be soon, but I'm hoping to remember what you said when I do start them.

OK, here is something spooky. I completely lost this thread. Literally -- it wasn't visible on the group page. I had to choose a book that I know I had mentioned, and click on it, and find my mention of it in the list associated with that book. I'm hoping that making a new post will restore it to visibility again??? Weird, but it is the second time that this has happened.

Catilina's Riddle by Steven Saylor, turned out to be a great recommendation (sorry, can't remember who suggested it now, though!) It deals with the Catiline rebellion, as do Robert Harris's novels about Cicero, but from a different POV, that of Gordianus the Finder, who is trying to lead a peaceful existence on his farm outside Rome. But Rome won't let him be: Cicero calls on a favor, and ends up embroiling Gordianus in great political issues. Together with his spat with the neighbors (who, furious that their cousin bequeathed his farm to a plebian, want Gordianus gone) brings the Finder and his family to near disaster. Good evocation of the era, and a fascinating plot. Will definitely read more in the series. 4.2 stars.

Studio Saint-Ex by Ania Szabo: Reading this debut novel was a bit like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle and realizing that there are a bunch of pieces missing. It's the story of three people: Antoine de Saint-Exupery, his wife, Consuelo, and his fictional lover, young fashion designer, Mignonne Lachapelle, in New York in 1942. All three of them are irritable and frustrated: Saint-Ex because he wants to resume flying for conquered France; Consuelo, because Saint-Ex won't give her his undivided attention, and Mignonne because she can't figure out what is going on with Antoine and can't get her career jumpstarted. Meanwhile, Saint-Ex starts to write The Little Prince. The problem? Szabo doesn't know what story she's telling -- is it a romance? About creativity? about complex relationships? About an era? She starts down one road, then reverses and pursues another course. They don't fit together readily and the result is less than compelling. Engaging in some ways -- the setting, the characters -- but persistently annoying in terms of structure and focus (or lack of same). Not really recommended. 2.8 stars.

The English Girl by Daniel Silva was an unexpected treat, and is one of the author's best suspense books, IMO, ranking just behind The Unlikely Spy and The Marching Season and some of his other early thrillers. It revolves around the young girl of the title, kidnapped in Corsica, who apparently vanishes. Until, weeks later, the English prime minister gets a blackmail threat and Gabriel Allon is called in. Allon, an Israeli spook and Silva's character, is one who has grown irritating to me as a lot of earlier books have involved way too much of his introspection and agonizing, over and over and over, about the same issues. In this book, not only does he seem to stop behaving a bit like Hamlet, but there's more nuanced action (not just Gabriel vs lotsa bad guys) and more real suspense, as well as an EXCELLENT plot twist right at the end, and a good one in the middle, when something really unexpected happens. You could probably read this as a standalone book, too, as Silva gives you enough insight into Allon's background along the way, and you wouldn't have to plod through his less successful ones. Also a recommended book. 4.4 stars

That's odd. You can always find your own thread via the "Started by you" link at the top left of anyone's thread. I put a link on my profile page too, just so I can go directly to it.

I've meant to start the Gabriel Allon-series for a while now, but somehow it always gets bumped. Perhaps next year!

Catilina's Riddle sounds really good! Actually it might be on my TBR list already. I have Steven Saylor's Empire: The Novel of Imperial Rome on the shelf waiting to be read as well.

I read the Gordianus series last year and loved it! Glad you found it enjoyable too.

And a couple more!

Unexploded by Alison MacLeod is a Man Booker nominee by a very interesting author. For the first half of the book, you're reading an excellent if not astonishing novel set in wartime Brighton, distinguished by the author's ability to completely capture the eerie sensation of what it must have been like to live in Brighton -- on the front lines of an expected invasion at any minute. Today, we know what happened; MacLeod's characters clearly don't, and the anxiety that ensues is impeccably portrayed. Everything that the novel's characters take for granted -- the hero-worship of a young boy for his 18-year-old brother, the mutual understanding and support of a married couple -- is 'blown up' and the characters are left to reassemble the pieces. The focus of the book is on a couple, bank manager Geoffrey and his wife Evelyn, and their young son, Phillip: the war forces each to re-evaluate the other in an unwelcome new light, beginning when Geoffrey directs Evelyn's attention to a place at the bottom of the garden where he has buried a metal box containing an emergency sum of cash: if invasion comes, he tells her calmly, it will be his job to accompany the bank's gold reserves to a safe place, abandoning his family to whatever may come. Evelyn, stunned, makes another unwelcome discovery when she finds what else the metal box contains... The story becomes darker still in its second half, as the 'games' by young Phillip take on ominous overtones. This isn't a perfect book, but it's very, very good, and a compelling yarn. Do read it... 4. 3 stars.

The Land of Spices by Kate O'Brien was a last-minute decision to read, thanks to calm, who had commented on the book in this weekend's Readathon thread: it's a novel that I had spotted while unpacking my books back in May and set aside to read. It's the twin tale, of Reverend Mother Marie Helene and the youngest child in her convent school in Ireland, Anna Murphy, at a time of upheaval and growing nationalism in Ireland. O'Brien clearly has some interesting ideas on that front, as the English nun recognizes the narrowness and parochialism of the Irish nationalist world view, even as she recognizes that within her own French/Belgian order, the Irish now are a growing proportion of the population. This seems to have been published in 1940, and is set in the first decade or two of the 20th century. A compelling story, but I don't think I liked it quite as much as did calm. Though I'll certainly try to read my other novel by this author, That Lady, sooner rather than later. 4 stars.

Through the Evil Days will be a welcome novel for those who have been following the tale of the Rev. Claire Fergusson (Episcopal priest and sometime National Guard officer) and Russ van Alstyne, chief of police of the small community of Millers Kill, NY. Claire and Russ are finally set to go off on their honeymoon, but it coincides with a mysterious fire, the kidnapping of a young girl with a life-threatening medical emergency and an epic ice storm. Oh yeah, and Claire's bishop has suggested she resign because of Russ, while the town is contemplating shutting down the police department and turning things over to the state troopers. Not enough? Well, the ex-husband of one of Russ's cops shows up, intent on either convincing her to give him $$ or taking away her kids... It's a rollercoaster action kind of story, which is very well handled. But once again it ends on a kind of cliffhanger, just as the last one did. 4.3 stars; recommended for series fans. It's due out in November -- just in time for the REAL ice storms.

... and another one...

The Iron King by Maurice Druon is a re-read (or in this case, a re-listen) to a French series of historical novels of which this is the first volume that I first consumed back in my teens, when I was starting to read in French. I'll probably mix and match the remaining five books in the series in terms of English & French as between 'em I have all the volumes. That said, I loathe the old paper in the Livre de Poche editions -- feels yucky on the fingers! Anyway, the first two books have been produced as audiobooks, but I'm not crazy abou the narrator, who is incapable of not making a Lombard banker sound like an Italian waiter, etc. The book? It's interesting, precisely because it's a different kind of historical novel, revolving not around American figures written by an American or English figures by an English writer or Americans/Brits writing about somewhere else, but a French novelist tackling his own history, in this case, king Phillip Le Bel's final year on the throne. Icy cold, authoritarian, he's an uncomfortable figure and this novel deals with some ugly events in a graphic way -- opening with the burning of the Grand Master of the Templars, who puts a curse on the king and his children -- to the deaths of the lovers of two of his daughters in law, broken on the wheel. If your stomach is strong enough, it's a fascinating tell. This is one of the classics of historical fiction and is being re-issued (in a new translation? I don't know) by Harper, presumably to capitalize on the popularity of A Game of Thrones, since George Martin acknowledges his debt to Druon. The first two are out now and the third is coming at the end of the month, after it has largely been out of print and unavailable for the last 20 years or so in English. Definitely recommended if you like historical fiction, or Game of Thrones. 4 stars.

Suzanne, you've been reading some very interesting historical fiction lately and I've added all three to my wishlist. I've givenUnexploded a nudge closer to the top as it is the one that has most captured my interest.

Sigh -- it seems as if updating this has become as much of a chore as trying to figure out whether I'll finish the books I so optimistically planned to read back in January! Most of my reading is logged on a "live" basis over in the 75 group, but here's where I'm at...

The Panopticon by Jenni Flanagan. Wow, this was a rollercoaster of a book, painting the picture of a very different kind of life, the one lived by 15-year-old Anais in Scotland today. It's billed a dystopian novel, but it's not: Flanagan takes the reader inside the life of a deeply dysfunctional girl, who has never known any member of a biological family and who has rotated through literally dozens of foster families and care homes before ending up in the Panopticon, accused of battering a policewoman into a coma and with blood on her school uniform. But we see the world through the eyes of Anais, not the adults who surround her, and it is a horrifying vision of a smart young girl (she dreams of Paris; loves Frieda Kahlo's paintings), who sees the utility of violence and has suffered more than most of us will in our lifetimes. When it seems she'll be made a "lifer" by those conducting "the experiment" (her hypothesis is that her life is just that, an experiment to see how badly messed up someone can be made to be), Anais decides to take drastic action... This is NOT a book for the squeamish, those who are turned off by young people committing vandalism, being violent and consuming lots of drugs. On the other hand, if you can suck it up, Flanagan has created an impressively distinct, vivid voice for Anais, and shown us the young girl beneath the hard shell. The ending is suitably ambiguous. 4.2 stars, recommended to those with the intestinal fortitude to read it. It's not going to make you feel warm and fuzzy, and it's impossible to distance yourself from Anais and her situation -- yes, it's all of her own making -- except when it isn't. Impressive achievement.

Heirs and Graces by Rhys Bowen is the next in this series featuring Lady Georgiana Rannoch, one of the only "cozy" mystery series that I follow. Georgie, once more in desperate need of a way to keep body & soul together in the 1930s, despite being thirty-somethingth in line to the throne, is asked by Queen Mary to help get a young Aussie accustomed to the idea that he's heir to a dukedom. Murder follows. The murder plot is tissue-thin, but the story, as a whole, is amusing & engaging enough. 3.65 stars.

Paris Was the Place by Susan Conley is an overly crowded novel with fascinating plot elements that simply doesn't work well at all, in my opinion. I think one of the main problem areas is with the dialog, which is simply unconvincing. I don't know how else to describe it, but in all but the most formulaic potboilers, I find that dialog usually sounds convincing. Here, it doesn't shed light on character or plot in any way and above all, it doesn't manage to make the characters in the novel sound like real people. Which then undermines the whole narrative. Set in 1989, it's the story of a young American woman (Willow, aka Willie) in Paris, where she works as a poetry instructor: the two plot threads are her volunteer work with young girls facing deportation (from India, Africa, the Middle East, they have been raped and abused or fled warfare) and her relationship with her brother, whose illness reveals itself inexplicably slowly to Willie (and very rapidly to the reader) as AIDS. Both of these plotlines should be far more gripping than they prove to be. Avoid it. 2.8 stars.

Cross and Burn by Val McDermid will be a must-read for those who have followed the Tony Hill & Carol Jordan novels from way back in time. Still reeling from the impact of their last and apparently final attempt to corral the first serial killer they caught as a team, the two apparently never plan to see each other again, until a new investigation forces everyone to reassess their loyalties. It's conventional McDermid fare; lots of thrills & chills. 4.2 stars

The Gravity of Birds by Tracy Guzeman is another novel by a new author that didn't quite achieve what it set out to, at least in the eyes of this reader. In a nutshell: two sisters and the young artist they knew in their teens; jealousy; illness; mystery. Flash forward 35 years and the artist is a superstar, although he hasn't painted anything in 20 years; he sends an art historian and an auctioneer off in search of the sisters as the price for consigning a final work for auction. Lots of overly-convenient twists and turns that are interesting enough if you don't mind suspending disbelief, but too much goes unexplained, especially the behavior of the elder sister. Ultimately unpersuasive, especially a final twist. 3.1 stars.

The Aspern Papers by Henry James -- I can't believe I hadn't tried to read this before. It's a delightful, sardonic little morality tale about an literary gentleman in pursuit of some letters in the possession of the very elderly woman who once inspired his literary hero, poet Jeffrey Aspern. The anonymous gentleman repairs to Venice, where Miss Bordereau, once the fabled Juliana of Aspern's poems, now lives. (This is said to be based on Byron and Claire Clairmont, which is the reason I bumped it to the top of my TBR...) But the elderly Miss Bordereau is a far cry from his imaginings, being grasping and rather vulgar; only her niece, the sheltered and naive Miss Tina, appears to understand his quest when he finally confides in her. (He's there under false pretenses...) This is a fascinating and intriguing story of greed and manipulation; the narrator's single minded pursuit of the letters and other papers takes him to extraordinary lengths, but how far will he go? And what will he lose in the process? I couldn't help but be delighted by one aspect of the final pages, as Miss Tina, if not standing up for herself, decides on an independent action that will haunt the narrator for the rest of his life. This is the Henry James of Washington Square and The American -- a taut, compelling character study. 4.4 stars; recommended.

I've only read The Mermaids Singing, but then I watched the TV-series, so the plan is to read the rest once I've forgotten the details. :)

Eva, I think it's ok to proceed with the series -- after the first, the novels diverge from the TV version, for the most part. Instead of taking complicated plots and transferring them to the television, they developed their own, much as the TV folks did with Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse mysteries once they ran out of original materials.

Great, that's good to know - although I like McDermid's writing very much, I don't want to start a mystery already clearly remembering whodunnit. :)

To Kill a Tsar by Andrew Williams: I was puzzled to see this has such a low rating and almost no reviews, as I found it a very interesting and intriguing novel, albeit one with a slightly inconclusive end. Spread over 1879 to 1881, it's the story of the group of pre-Bolshevik terrorists who conspire to murder Tsar Alexander II, and a young Anglo-Russian doctor who falls in love with one of their number. It's a compelling picture of a conspiracy amidst the authoritarian world of Tsarist Russia. Even though I knew what happens, more or less, it was still a v. good read, if not brilliant. Recommended. 4 stars.

updating... and long overdue.

For the 2014 challenge, I'm going to be reading essays, not books! It's tough to try to find books that fit categories later in the year, when I've got other "must read" tomes demanding my attention..

Songs of Willow Frost by Jamie Ford was very "meh" for me. I think the best way to explain my reaction is to say that while I might one day read the Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, I feel absolutely no urgency about doing so and would only do so via a library copy. The backdrop is interesting -- Seattle's Chinatown in the 1920s and 1930s, with lots of detail and color. But the story is sentimental and predictable: young boy rediscovers on early cinema a woman he is convinced is his mother. Lots of stuff about his tough life in Depression-era orphanage; lots of stuff about his Chinese mother's tough experiences as a young adult and single mother. All of which really didn't stick that much. 3.3 stars.

The Last Policeman by Ben Winters was, as I had been warned, less than overwhelming. The premise was interesting -- is it worth trying to solve a suicide that just might be murder if an asteroid is going to hit the earth in six months and destroy the planet? -- but the execution was meh... If I read the sequel, it will be only out of mild curiosity, and only if it comes from the library. 3.3 stars. For my 2013 categories challenge.

Saving Mozart by Raphael Jerusalmy was a short and interesting little novel, whose narrator, Otto Steiner, is an inmate in a TB sanitarium in Salzburg at the outbreak of WW2. He's an atheist of Jewish heritage, and a former musician/music critic, whose musical life constricts as his physical resources diminish and as he and his former patients are shoved into the attic to make way for wounded soldiers. The last straw is when it seems clear that the Nazi ethos is going to take over the annual Salzburg Festival, and Steiner decides to strike back in a quirky way. You won't guess what it is until the end, but let's just say it's a very indirect and very musical way of having the last word. Entertaining, if not great. Another find from Europa Editions. 3.9 stars.

Ripper by Isabel Allende carries a big "avoid" warning on it, at least in my opinion. AT first I thought, wow, how intriguing, a noted literary novelist tackling a new genre. But if you're going to venture into the world of mystery and suspense, the novel you write should have an element of mystery, suspense or intrigue, and there ain't much of that here. Allende has really written a novel about a loosely-connected network of characters involved in some implausible situations. Yeah, it's well written, in linguistic terms, but the plot is laughable. Avoid. 2.5 stars.

In the Woods by Tana French was a revelation. I've had a couple of books in this series hanging around the house for some time, but for unknown reasons never picked one up to read it. When I did start (I alternated between listening and reading this) it was a revelation. Rob Ryan, the narrator, has secrets in his past that my affect his investigation into the murder of a young girl; Ryan's own agonies with memory and trust cause problems with the inquiry and his longstanding friendship with his closest friend, his partner Cassie Maddox. The next book focuses on Cassie, and I promptly downloaded that onto my Kindle to read. Big happy discovery that there are more books in this series to read: highly recommended! 4.6 stars.

Hour of the Rat by LIsa Brackmann was an OK/interesting enough mystery featuring an Iraq war veteran who inexplicably has ended up representing a dissident artist's work in China. I didn't get that, but I admit I didn't read the first book in the series, and there wasn't enough background here to make it clear, or to make Ellie a coherent, fully-rounded character whose actions are understandable and logical. A former army buddy, suffering from a traumatic brain injury, enlists her to help him find his brother, who has vanished from view in China. Cue some implausible plot twists. It's not actively bad, but Ellie dashing all over the country isn't quite convincing, either. The backdrop to the story -- of China's environmental degradation -- is intriguing but a tad-heavy handed (as it is in another novel I'm reading before it has to go back to the library.) 3.3 stars, adequate but not superbly compelling.

Lighthouse Island by Paulette Jiles turned out to be slightly more engaging or interesting than it seemed in the first half of the book, but only marginally so, and it's still not a book that I would recommend. The writing is downright poetic, but Jiles fails at the primary task for anyone writing a dystopian novel: building a convincing alternative universe. It isn't that the ideas aren't there, but rather that they are too clearly ideas rather than compelling views of a possibly real world. Her situations and characters are vehicles for those ideas, not interesting in their own right, and Nadia's quest to reach the elusive Lighthouse Island ultimate proves to be ironically easy and accomplished (spoiler alert) only with the kind of deus ex machina that no self-respecting novelist should allow anywhere near their plot. Similarly, the final pages contain WAAAY too many unbelievable coincidences. 3 stars. I wouldn't bother, honestly.

Queen's Gambit by Elizabeth Fremantle is a historical novel that others have raved about but that I'll limit myself to saying it was quite good. The queen of the title is Katherine Parr, Henry VIII's sixth and last queen, and probably had I not read a lot about her and her life and times over the years, I would have appreciated it significantly more. Certainly Fremantle does a good job of providing interesting glimpses at some of the main protagonists and avoiding some of the major traps, from anachronisms to telling the story through some kind of romantic soft focus or turning it into "history with dialogue". (I particularly found her view of Elizabeth, the future Elizabeth I, interesting...) A solid novel, with lots of period detail and capturing what it must have been like to be Katherine, bullied into marriage and fearing for her life. Fremantle also does a decent job of offering a theory for how one of the country's wisest women allowed herself to be seduced by one of its most foolish and reckless men. 4 stars.

An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris is, quite simply, an excellent novel. Nope, it's not literary fiction, but hovers in that no man's land: well written but essentially simply a dramatic novel rather than a Great Work of Art. In other words, the epitome of a 'thumping good read'. It's the tale of the Dreyfus case that rocked France in the final decade of the 19th century and whose legacy spilled over into the pre-WW1 period, told through the eyes of Georges Picquart. An army major when we first meet him witnessing the ceremonial disgracing of convicted spy Alfred Dreyfus, when the latter is shipped off to Devil's Island, Picquart is given charge of the French Army's covert intelligence arm and its motley band of officers and informers. Picquart, already the odd man out, soon stumbles over evidence that there may be another spy around -- or is it really "another" spy? Could Dreyfus actually be innocent? Harris manages to stick rigidly to historical facts without undermining the sense of suspense that lingers throughout. This isn't really a mystery, or a suspense novel, but it reads like one, and even though I already knew the basic facts of the case I read with bated breath. At times, the pace slows down a bit, and there's sometimes a bit of repetition, but that's minor. And it seems churlish to give it 4.7 or 4.8 stars when I really want to say -- 5 stars.

The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson was an odd book to experience. On the one hand, it's tremendously imaginative, as the author literally thinks his way into the head of a North Korean citizen, so anonymous that he is named after one of the revolution's martyrs, and yet who insists to all and sundry that he isn't really an orphan. (His orphan name is Jun Do, misheard by Americans as John Doe...) It's the tension between the everyman situation and the individuality of Jun Do that's at the heart of the novel, but however well written and intriguing this was, it wasn't an easy or straightforward book to read, and it wasn't until I was halfway through that it no longer fell like a labor, and I started to grasp what Johnson was doing. It's one of those books I ended up appreciating, understanding, but never really engaging with on a visceral level. 4.1 stars. I can see why it won the Pulitzer, but it's not a book that I can say was truly a great reading experience.

The Orchid House by Lucinda Riley is a book I've been meaning to read for a while, in part because part of it is set in Thailand and in part because it's one of those novels that has plots involving both past and present. It's a kind of sweetly romantic tale, with some satisfying twists and turns, but the Thailand bit is somewhat perfunctory and at least one of those twists was downright bizarre & implausible. Still, entertaining.

The Ashford Affair by Lauren Willig is another two-stranded narrative -- one in the present, one in the past (from 1906 to 1928 or so, and New York to Kenya and England). It's another family mystery, unraveled by modern day lawyer Clemmie, who has sacrificed spending time with her family, especially beloved grandmother Addie, to boost her career. Then everything reaches a climax and Addie finds herself unearthing a family puzzle rooted in some "White Mischief" style antics in Kenya during the late 1920s. It strains credulity, rather, but it's a reasonably entertaining read. I think I prefer Willig's Pink Carnation novels, which are unapologetically silly in a way this isn't, and which thus temper the sugary romantic element. I had fun with those books; this one was OK, but... 3.4 stars.

Phew, lots of good reviews here! You've gotten me interested in An Officer and a Spy, and I already have Saving Mozart on my list but will now bump it closer to the top.

I really appreciate how you are able to put in words what about a book puts you off. So many times I dislike a book but can't really analyze the reason why.

I have the same problem, mamzel. Suz, you are such a great writer, and so excellent at putting the "whys" into words, I always admire your reviews. I don't even mind the Book Bullets that I get every time I visit your thread!

Also, your volume of reading is amazing to me too - wish I could switch reading lives with you just for a day to see what it's like!

I've placed a hold on An Officer and a Spy at the library. Your review is excellent! Really looking forward to reading the book.

Glad to hear you liked In the Woods - you have a few fantastic reads ahead of you!!

I hope everyone else enjoys An Officer and a Spy as much as I did -- it is one of those books that I'm sorry I've read because now I can't read it for the first time again -- the epitome of a "thumping good read"!

Laura, you probably don't want to switch lives with me. Right now, I read, and I work, and that's pretty much it. Thankfully, I have books to help me deal with life funks!

A few more to report, but I'm still going to fall well short of this target, even if I meet my overall 2013 target...

Morality Play by Barry Unsworth (audiobook) was simply excellent. The narrator's voice in this was slightly rushed, giving an almost panicky tone to the tale which suited it in many ways. The narrator of the book, Nicholas Barber, is a priest who has defied his bishop and walked away from his assigned labors; that was in the spring and now it's winter and he's hungry and cold and alone. Then he falls in with a troupe of traveling players (this is the 14th century or thereabouts) just as one of their number dies. Somewhat grudgingly, he is accepted as a replacement, and the troupe sets out back on the road, body of their late comrade stuffed onto a cart. When they spot a town, they figure it will be a great opportunity to bury him -- and make some money with their traditional miracle/morality plays. But the predictable and ritualized dramas are old-fashioned and the audience small and grudging -- and the priest demands a big payment for the burial. Then the master player decides to do something radically different: to tell the story of a true crime for which a young woman is about to be hanged. But as the players research and then enact the murder of young Thomas Wells, it rapidly becomes clear that this isn't at all that it seemed. Before too long, the players are treading on very dangerous ground indeed. This is a practically perfect little novel, one that captures in every detail the perilous nature of changing times; the post-plague era where the feudal bonds are being questioned and the religious domination of everyday life challenged. (Historically, this would have been the period in the decades leading up to the Peasants' Revolt.) I particularly loved the interplay toward the end between Nicholas and the King's justice. Very excellent. 4.7 stars.

The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse, on the other hand, was a rather predictable and anaemic little tale of present and past ghosts mingling: the ghosts of WW1 and 600 year old ghosts from the Albigensian crusade in southern France. I'm going to read two of Mosse's other books but thought I'd start with this one (after seeing the TV version of Labyrinth, but while the writing is interesting, as are the plot lines, it's all very simplistic. Meh. 3.1 stars.

Blue at the Mizzen by Patrick O'Brian (audiobook) was a slightly disappointing conclusion to the series (there are 2 or 3 chapters of book #21 that were finished before the author's death, but I'm not sure I'll seek it out.) Part of the disappointment is due to the fact that the war is over and the intensity has slightly evaporated; there is less at stake for our heroes, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. Yes, the trip to Chile and Peru is as interesting as ever, but too much of the book is composed of Stephen's letters, written to Sir Joseph and to his new lady love interest. I'd rather hear about what's happening first hand, through a character's eyes and experience, and O'Brian would never have done a great job with an epistolary novel, clearly. 3.75 stars. A disappointing conclusion.