Falls the Shadow

"This is Simon de Montfort's story--and the story of King Henry III, as weak and changeable as Montfort was brash and unbending. It is a saga of two opposing wills that would later clash in a storm of violence and betrayal, a story straight from the pages of history that brings the world of the thirteenth century comletely, provocatively, and magnificently alive. Above all, this is a story of conflict and treachery, of human frailty and broken legends, a tale of pageantry and grandeur that is as unforgettable as it is real."

I'm not sure how I feel about posting about sequels to books for which I've already posted. I guess we'll see. I'm also not sure how I feel about Falls the Shadow either, so grab a glass, ambivalence all around!

Penman is a master at what she does, and I won't really go into that again here. She uses the same episodic style in this as she did for Here Be Dragons, and it worked with that same efficiency. Unfortunately, this book came up severely lacking in what will henceforth be known as the King John Department. There were no characters here that really grabbed me and held on until the end, as he did. Ellen ferch Llewellyn did for a bit as did her brother Daffyd, but neither featured in even the full first half of the novel. After that, Wales took a clear backseat to the action happening in England and my interest suffered for it. I think perhaps I was meant to latch on to Nell or Simon de Montfort at some point, but I just couldn't. There is nothing wrong with them, but then maybe that's the problem, not enough weakness for my sympathy? I don't really know. All I do know is that I felt for the entire last half of the novel that we were approaching doom and I didn't have a character to hold my hand through it. I had no Joanna to root for. No romance with Llewellyn Fawr cheer on. Nothing but a doomed, if just, cause and a white knight to fight for it.

It's possible the doom bit was my real issue with this novel. Penman paints a clear good v. bad picture in this one, with far less subtlety than in the former novel, and the whole time you know team good is going to get its little fanny kicked. And there is nothing you can do about it. King Henry is a dribbling fool, but he'll win. And unlike his father KJ (Do you mind if I call him KJ? I feel we've reached this point in our relationship.), he isn't an interesting villain. You don't care about him at all. You hate him. He's a fool and a weakling and entirely without redeeming qualities. KJ was the spawn of the devil, but at least he was clever and you respected him even while you hated him. I'm hoping Edward can bring a little more nuance to the "Evil English King" role in the third novel. Hints of his being KJ's grandson in various ways have been dropped along the way, so we'll see.

Honestly, it took me a while to finish this one because I knew the good guys would loose and the closer that loss came the harder it was for me to go on reading it. In the end, Penman let her characters sign off with dignity and humanity, so it was worth forcing myself to keep going. I'm not sure I'm ready for the third one, though. I also feel that Llewellyn is a stranger now. I knew him as a small boy, and a bit as a young man, but then he sort of...faded away. Here's hoping when we meet again in the last installment he'll have lived up to my earlier memories of him.

Rating: Three KJs.

Girl in the Arena

Lyn is a neo-gladiator’s daughter, through and through.  Her mother has made a career out of marrying into the high-profile world of televised blood sport, and the rules of the Gladiator Sports Association are second nature to their family.  Always lend ineffable confidence to the gladiator.  Remind him constantly of his victories. And most importantly: Never leave the stadium when your father is dying. The rules help the family survive, but rules—and the GSA—can also turn against you. When a gifted young fighter kills Lyn’s seventh father, he also captures Lyn’s dowry bracelet, which means she must marry him... For fans of The Hunger Games and Fight Club, Lise Haines’ debut novel is a mesmerizing look at a world addicted to violence—a modern world that’s disturbingly easy to imagine. 

How Suzanne Collin's did not get a credit in this work is beyond me. I mean, she basically wrote the template for it. And I have to hand it to the author, it's a move well played. Take a wildly popular book, decompose it to its basic elements, rename characters, mix with a slightly new setting, bake at 350 degrees for ten minutes and serve immediately. 

I'm not exaggerating the similarities here, either. A strong teenaged girl loses her father, her mother can't cope, she needs to look out for a beloved younger sibling or they'll both starve and be homeless, she's got ambiguous feelings for a beefy male BFF, the establishment wants to turn her life into mass entertainment and has the ability to take everything from her if she doesn't go with it, and she's developing "feelings" for the guy she's supposed to face in the arena. Reads like a check-ist, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, this time the plot and character motivations just didn't gel. First off, the culture of the Glads (ouch, right? I know) is thoroughly unbelievable. Rather than building a post-apocalyptic scene or an alternate world or any other slightly more plausible explanation, Haines wants us to imagine this Gladiator culture happening in the hear and now. Then she whips out a dowry bracelet? Honey, please. And then there were those plot points and character motivations that made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Why does Lyn think becoming a gladiator is any less grotesque than marrying one? She is honestly going to march into the ring and kill a man she has come to think of as a friend? Because the thought of marrying a gladiator is beyond the pale? She's smart and resourceful and completely unable to see a more sane way of dealing with this mess? Honey, please.

Strangely, overall Lyn is a likeable character. She's got that nice mix of sarcasm, teenaged angst, beyond-her-years wisdom, and badassery that makes reading her both enjoyable and familiar (she's a lot like all the other action fighting women you see in YA these days, so it's template but done well even so). So the fact that she follows the prescribed plot actually makes the whole thing worse.

Lyn's relationship to her autism-spectrum brother is sweet and well written. Her relationship with Uber (Yes, his name is Uber. I know.) even has some potential. But again, that potential is unrealized, in this case because this is based on another work and dare not break the given mold (wherein the female lead cannot resolve her angsty lovey-dovey feeling in the first book, because that would kill the angst). I loved Uber as a character. An awkward, clumsy dork in thick glasses and sandals who can't help but profess his undying love for a girl is pretty hard not to love, if we're being honest. However, we are not being honest here. If we were honest, very nearly all of Lyn's decisions are ridiculous. As is the name Uber. (I know)

And then there was that ending. Look, we all know both Lyn and Uber will survive because, again, it's in the template, but if you thought the "dowry bracelet" was an insult to your intelligence wait until the last slap-dash few pages. Suddenly, out of the blue, Lyn gets hit with the stop-acting-like-an-idiot stick and does what she should have done the moment her mother bowed out of the scene. Somehow, the rationality of that decision makes the rest of the plot all that much more unbelievable. I just don't have any suspension of disbelief left in me for this one.

Rating: One strappy Glad sandal.

Cathup Ketchup

No, that is not a real book title. (Yet!) There were several weeks between the last two posts and in full disclosure I feel I should admit to having read a few books in those weeks. Most of this gap was my own laziness in not wanting to post. However, one purpose behind the creation of this blog was to hold myself accountable for the sort of books I choose to spend time reading, so...here goes.

I re-read These Old Shades. Re-read as in I've read that puppy more than two times already. It's not that it is such a fantastic book either. Georgette Heyer was a master at what she did, but this was hardly her magnum opus. The truth is I can't really explain why I re-read this one instead of something else except that I finished the other book I had been reading while on the train and I needed something else to get me through the commute home and this was already on my kindle and it just happened. Again. Rating: Three out of five powdered wigs. Seriously, though, if you like regency stuff, better than average romance, and a few laugh out loud side characters, pick up any one of Heyer's dozens of books.

I also read The Warrior's Maiden. Go ahead. Judge me. Mock my taste. I deserve it. With a title like that, what did I expect? Realistic characters? An actual plot? Oh honey, they don't make those for less than $1. Rating: The hem of one torn bodice. Oy.

I tried to read The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning because it sounded pretty funny. Turned out it was crass and horrible. I won't bother rating a book I didn't finish.

And I finally caved and read...or rather devoured....The Scourge of Muirwood  and The Blight of Muirwood. And they were each better than the first. Better atmosphere somehow, same great characters, and even more epic plot twists. Loved both, to be honest. Except for Colvin. I just don't get that character. Who is this grumpy man? Why does Lia love him? He is an mystery wrapped in an enigma, my friends. Oh, and the LDS mythology thing didn't bother me as it was tempered by some other fairly awesome religious mythology and did not involve any more Nephites...much. Rating: Four out of five splotchy apples.

I guess I also read A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections. I don't know why I would need to guess about that, I know I read it. I was there. And so was Campbell, and it was trippy. And then we both leaped over the chasms in our lives and found the warrior within. Groovy, man. Rating: Three out of five bright shiny souls.

Other than that it really did take me a few days to get through Here Be Dragons, so that took some time. And I'm now halfway through the sequel so...off we go again!

Here Be Dragons

"Thirteenth-century Wales is a divided country, ever at the mercy of England’s ruthless, power-hungry King John. Llewelyn, Prince of North Wales, secures an uneasy truce by marrying the English king’s beloved illegitimate daughter, Joanna, who slowly grows to love her charismatic and courageous husband. But as John’s attentions turn again and again to subduing Wales---and Llewelyn---Joanna must decide where her love and loyalties truly lie.
The turbulent clashes of two disparate worlds and the destinies of the individuals caught between them spring to life in this magnificent novel of power and passion, loyalty and lies. The book that began the trilogy that includes Falls the Shadow and The Reckoning, Here Be Dragons brings thirteenth-century England, France, and Wales to tangled, tempestuous life."

Honestly, I don't generally read so very much historical fiction, but since the start of this blog I've been all over that genre like a blister on a plague victim (too graphic? sorry). And then Sharon K. Penman walked in and blew my mind.

This is the first split-perspective book I've ever read that I did not at one point toss aside in exasperation at yet another unwanted perspective shift. Generally when authors choose to switch between two different character viewpoints to tell concurrent story lines, the story feels uneven. One character's plot will invariably be more compelling than the other and I find myself resenting the second plot line and investing zero emotional effort into its characters. To say Penman pulled it off would be an understatement. She rocked it. I never minded when the scene changed to Wales from England or to England from France. I cared just as much for Llewellyn as I did for Joanna before their stories joined, and whenever King John entered the page I ate it up. Is it wrong that I loved him best?

And how could I not? Penman's treatment of John was nothing short of genius. The man has been vilified for centuries now, and even his contemporaries hated him. Unless they didn't. Unless they were his daughter or son. Unless they saw how viciously, unrepentantly clever he was. Unless they loved him. It would have been all too easy to let John be a caricature, to paint him as the mustache twirling villain or the misunderstood champion of the common man. But he was neither and both of those, and Penman breathed life into that dichotomy. She showed us John from the moment of his first betrayal to his final moments of dying alone and betrayed. She didn't gloss over his more heinous sins or sweep his vindictiveness under the table. But when the curtain closed on his life, I chocked up a bit. True, he did some blatantly horrible things in that life for which not even his daughter could fully forgive him. And yet he was compelling, daring, generous, and so very, very clever.

This book is thick and full to the brim with historic detail. Penman chose an ambitious timeline to fit into a single novel. Decades of historical intrigue and wars should have made this tomb unremittingly boring. Her list of characters along should have sunk the ship. But it didn't, because she's oh so very good at what she does. She wrote it as a sort of compilation of vignettes. Short scenes that manage to tell us everything we need to know and not bog us down with unnecessary filler. We see glimpses of the main characters rather than drawn out sagas of them. Here Llewellyn is starting his first campaign for Wales, and there little Joanna sits trying desperately to please a mother who hates her. We do not need to hear about every battle Llewellyn fights or every week Joanna manages to survive, the glimpse is enough. That is perhaps why her characters seemed so real. Penman chose her moments well, each chapter was like another thread in a complex tapestry that, when you stood back and looked at the whole, was stunning.

I like a little romance in my literature, and Penman delivered that nicely. How refreshingly new, too, to read a love story that lasts decades rather than months! Most romantic plots rely on a few sighs of unrequited love or romantic obstacles that must first be overcome before a single moment of epiphany-like bliss is reached. Not this time. Joanna's relationship with Llewellyn lasted more than twenty years and was a complex thing, fraught with troubles and joy both. When the eventual (SPOILERS!) adultery happened, she had me in tears more than once for both of them.

Another reader posted elsewhwere about not wanting to give the author too much credit since, let's be honest, she didn't come up with the plot on her own. It's history! Wikipedia basically did the work for her. Really? REALLY? Let me introduce you to King John, honey. I hear he has some lovely dungeons.

Rating: Five our of five troths plighted.

Queen Hereafter

"Refugee. Queen. Saint. In eleventh-century Scotland, a young woman strives to fulfill her destiny despite the risks . . .

Shipwrecked on the Scottish coast, a young Saxon princess and her family—including the outlawed Edgar of England—ask sanctuary of the warrior-king Malcolm Canmore, who shrewdly sees the political advantage. He promises to aid Edgar and the Saxon cause in return for the hand of Edgar’s sister, Margaret, in marriage.

A foreign queen in a strange land, Margaret adapts to life among the barbarian Scots, bears princes, and shapes the fierce warrior Malcolm into a sophisticated ruler. Yet even as the king and queen build a passionate and tempestuous partnership, the Scots distrust her. When her husband brings Eva, a Celtic bard, to court as a hostage for the good behavior of the formidable Lady Macbeth, Margaret expects trouble. Instead, an unlikely friendship grows between the queen and her bard, though one has a wild Celtic nature and the other follows the demanding path of obligation.
Torn between old and new loyalties, Eva is bound by a vow to betray the king and his Saxon queen. Soon imprisoned and charged with witchcraft and treason, Eva learns that Queen Margaret—counseled by the furious king and his powerful priests—will decide her fate and that of her kinswoman Lady Macbeth. But can the proud queen forgive such deep treachery?"

Why are all blurbs so inaccurate these days? I guess not too inaccurate, just...intentionally misleading on one or two points.

Another Scotland novel, and this one a historical fiction piece to boot. Margaret of Scotland is a new heroine for me, and one I may choose to read more about from other authors. Susan Fraser King's novel is a tight, well paced, well written work that left me wanting more...just not from that same author. One gets the feeling that Ms. King does not like Malcom Canmore and so is unable to render him clearly. Instead she sketches a bear of a man and pushes him off to the side where he can do little harm and she is not obligated to make him into a hero for anyone.

Margaret herself is a difficult woman to like in this novel. No, better said she is a difficult woman to love. One can like her, as the protagonist Eva does, for her brief moments of intelligence and goodness. But she is incompletely drawn. Rather than a living woman, the author gives us a holy statue, somewhat wooden even. Her saintly ways (holy anorexia anyone?) and sharp perfectionist temper are not balanced by a sympathetic look into her heart. Indeed, the author begins the novel allowing us to see into Margaret's thoughts, but shortly we leave them never to re-enter. It's an unsatisfied potential, and I'm sorry for it.

All of this means that what could have been a lovely trip into one of the most fabled romances of Scottish history fell short. Margaret and Malcolm have all the makings of Beauty and the Beast (as the author herself notes in her afterward), yet their relationship is a cold one here. Brief moments of closeness between the two, as seen through the eyes of a fictional protagonist, barely whet the appetite for more. The author uses Eva as protagonist to avoid trying to write through the voice of a saint. I can't help feeling Margaret would have made a much more interesting sole protagonist. Neither can I shake the notion that this author did not like Malcom and was too afraid to humanize St. Margaret to give their story the best telling. Ah well. At least Ms. King made wise plot decisions which cut down the timeline and make the book a smoother read than pure history would have allowed.

Rating: Three kilts and a bottle of Scotch. I'm glad I read it, and now I need to find another book about this woman.

The Flight of Gemma Hardy

"Set in Scotland and Iceland in the 1950s and '60s, The Flight of Gemma Hardy—a captivating homage to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre—is a sweeping saga that resurrects the timeless themes of the original but is destined to become a classic all its own."

I'm leaving out the bulk of the blurb there since if you've read Jane Eyre you know how this story goes. And while I love Bronte's book, I actually picked this one up for the setting since I'll be visiting the Orkney Islands in a few months.

Luckily, the setting is wonderfully rendered. Settings plural, I should say, since the novel travels all around Scotland before taking a trip to Iceland and back. Margot Livesey creates a lovely atmosphere in each of her various settings, including Gemma's stay on the Orkney Islands. Without getting bogged down in descriptions, I felt myself surrounded by the sea, listening to the calls of birds and seals, and feeling the cold wind pushing my back from the cliffs. Truly, well done.

The author unabashedly uses Jane Eyre as template for this novel. However, it was a bit like reading the same classic plot with all new characters. Mostly the wrong characters, unfortunately. A few of the lesser figures were given nice backstories and modern updates that seemed to work. Mirriam (aka Helen) has asthma and an actual personality in this version, and Nell is much more enjoyable than Adelle ever was, with a more heart-wrenching history. Mr. Sinclair, on the other hand, is nothing like the brooding, passionate, tormented hero that was Mr. Rochester. Instead he's a claustrophobic banker who says very little and spends virtually no time with the heroine before falling inexplicably in love with her, making it seem more like a rebound off of Coco (Miss Ingrid's tacky, two-dimensional update who self-destructs almost instantaneously).

Gemma herself is the worst fit of all in her role as Jane Eyre. Unlike her forbearer, Gemma does not grow from a difficult childhood into a strong woman whose integrity and belief in humanity define her. Instead, Gemma grows from a difficult childhood into a selfish, unlikeable liar with a sense of entitlement which baffles the mind. While Jane's flight from Thornfield hall is fraught with heartbreak and sacrifice, Gemma's flight is a story of selfish abandonment. Sinclair, it turns out, does not have a mad wife in the attic ala Rochester. What he does have is neither a romantic deal breaker nor any reason for Gemma to drop him like a hot potato. Drop him she does, however, and goes on to wreak havoc in the lives of several more innocent people, lying and stealing her way to "finding herself", before magnanimously forgiving Sinclair when he presents himself again in a very deux ex machina moment in the last chapter. That last chapter, by the way? Horrific. Slap-dash, void of atmosphere, climaxing in one of the worst speeches I've yet read from a main character. Basically, she wants to be treated like an adult. She wants to act like a spoiled, selfish child of course, but be treated like an adult. Okay, sweetie. Welcome to prison. It's where adults who do the things you did end up.

Rating: Two stars. One for the ocean birds and one for the secondary characters like Seamus and Ross.

The Red Queen

Heiress to the red rose of Lancaster, Margaret Beaufort never surrenders her belief that her house is the true ruler of England and that she has a great destiny before her.
Married to a man twice her age, quickly widowed, and a mother at only fourteen, Margaret is determined to turn her lonely life into a triumph. She sets her heart on putting her son on the throne of England regardless of the cost to herself, to England, and even to the little boy. Disregarding rival heirs and the overwhelming power of the York dynasty, she names him Henry, like the king; sends him into exile; and pledges him in marriage to her enemy Elizabeth of York’s daughter. As the political tides constantly move and shift, Margaret charts her own way through another loveless marriage, treacherous alliances, and secret plots."

The actual summary for this book is about five times the length of what I've cut and pasted up there. Gives you an idea about just how long and involved this book is. Historical fiction, honey, what can I say?

I will say this, it was less sexy than The Other Boleyn Girl that's for darn sure. It helps that the protagonist here pretty much spends the entire novel wanting to be a nun, so there's that. It also had a lot less intrigue than Other Boleyn, which means it was harder to get through.

What I loved about this book is that even though the protagonist is an egotistical brat and master manipulator, Phillipa Gregory totally had me routing for the Red Queen all the way. It's written in first person narrative style, which should make it difficult for readers to get a clear picture of the heroine. Gregory managed it deftly. You know from the very beginning that you are reading from the perspective of a woman who could give Malificent a run for her money, and yet you like reading her. You want her to win. When she falls, you are not only disappointed for her, you're angry right along with her as though your pride has also been wounded. When she triumphs, you want to stand looking haughtily down at enemies now vanquished. This is what I imagine it would feel like to read from the perspective of the villainess.

I also loved the love stories. Yes, there were multiple. Some predictable and others not. One in particular, with her second husband, is bitter sweet and understated. Again, Gregory shows her talent in getting us to see  Margaret not only through her own eyes but through those of her aging, gentle second husband who is wiser than Margaret gives him credit for and loves her much more than she deserves.

I did not love how action free the novel was. Margaret eventually became the king's mother, but her contributions to the cause didn't amount to much more than getting pregnant, marrying some dudes, and writing a few letters. For the greater portion of the book it felt like the action was happening off stage somewhere. And that's probably how it was for Margaret. Her power came not from herself but her husbands and sons who did all the manoeuvring themselves. The book is a window into the impotence of being a woman during those times, when girls are not much more than heifers sent to breed by the men who own them.

I would not read this book again, but then I can't really think of any historical fiction novel which I would read again. I would, however, totally love to hang out with Margaret and let her be witchy to me. So there's that.

Rating: Two stars, my gentle lords and ladies faire.