faintingviolet’s #CBR4 review #42: Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

I don’t know how I missed the Anne of Green Gables books when I was younger, but I did. I read all the Babysitters Club, all the Little House on the Prairie books but no Anne. I wish that I had found these books earlier since Anne is such a kindred spirit, as she would phrase it. L.M. Montgomery took much of the beautiful surroundings of Prince Edward Island at the turn of the last century to create the optimum environment to introduce perhaps the most fully formed adolescent character I have ever read.

 

faintingviolet’s #CBR4 review #40: A Broken Vessel by Kate Ross

The Cannonball has given me many things this year (Ready Player One, The Fault in Our Stars, Dreamers of the Day) but I think introducing me to the character of Julian Kestrel and his mysteries is perhaps my favorite. I know that I haven’t rated the first book, Cut to the Quick, or this one, A Broken Vessel, with as many stars as the previous three but I simply adore the characters Kate Ross created in a way that I did not feel in the other Cannonball finds.   I love the characters of Julian, Dipper, and Dr. MacGregor enough that I can overlook my displeasure at spending so much time with Dipper’s sister, Sally.

Sally Stokes is a prostitute and thief who pickpockets her johns. We soon find out she is also Dipper’s younger sister who he has not seen in years. Much of A Broken Vessel is spent with Sally as the reader views the events through Sally’s eyes. Sally’s adventure starts in London’s Haymarket district, where she picks up three men in turn and nicknames them Bristles, Blue Eyes, and Blinkers. From each Sally steals a handkerchief – and from one she mistakenly steals a letter which contains an urgent plea for help.  It isn’t until she runs into her brother after being roughed up by Blinkers that Sally discovers the letter, and who better to help her unravel the mystery of the girl in need of help than one Julian Kestrel.

Julian, Dipper, and Sally (with an assist by Dr. MacGregor) come up with a plan to discover the identity of the girl in question and find out that she has died. Julian is convinced it was murder, and upon getting the backing of a magistrate, sets about to prove it. Enter Sally, who as a lady – and one of ill repute – she is particularly suited to investigate the circumstances of the girl’s death in a reform house. Julian and Dipper do their own sleuthing, turning up a human trafficking circuit and ultimately the person responsible for the murder.

This one was not perfect, mainly because while I acknowledge that Kate Ross gets the slang and other language right, it felt like it got in the way of the storytelling. Much of the language is dead to the American reader and at times it felt like I spent more times deducing what Sally was saying than what it meant for the story overall. Still a worthy read and I have Whom The Gods Love lined up to read in the next few weeks. I will be sad to end the Kestrel mysteries, and I know that I won’t be able to hold off finishing the fourth later this year.

 

faintingviolet’s #CBR4 review #39: The Last Boyfriend by Nora Roberts

Romance novels have the reputation of being formulaic. This is not without reason, given that many romance novel writers’ churn out several books a year. It follows that the writers often develop a short hand with their readers which in turn can lead to a formula. Romance novels tend to unfold in a set way.  The reader meets the couple, it is made obvious to the reader that they are meant to be. This is achieved by either has a mutual conflict to overcome or individual conflicts which keep them from being together. The conflicts are resolved and then the couple decides they are meant to be together and make it official. End novel.

 

When I pick up any romance novel, but particularly a Nora Roberts novel, I am ready for just this formula. The fun in reading these types of works for me lies in the details. Give me a good setting, fun supporting characters, and interesting personalities for the leads and I am happy to give you a few hours of my time. However, this time reading The Last Boyfriend the second book in the Inn Boonsboro trilogy, I was left strangely disappointed. Owen Montgomery is the middle brother and office manager without an actual office for the family construction company. He is organized to a fault and likes it that way. Avery McTavish is the owner of the pizzeria across from the Inn and has her sights on another restaurant across the intersection. Avery and Owen have been in and out of each other’s lives for decades, but the tenor of their relationship is about to change.

 

This is all as to be expected, but when it was time to introduce the main conflict for these characters to overcome it felt lacking. Avery has serious issues regarding her mother who ran out on her and her father many years before and makes an appearance(late in the novel) to disrupt what Avery has been building with Owen. Their main conflict is a lack of communication. While this plot line is true to life, it doesn’t make for very interesting reading.  Also, the unspooling of the ghost storyline, featuring Lizzie, is also underwhelming.  I am however hopeful for the final piece of the trio because we get more inherently interesting leads: Owen’s older brother Ryder and Innkeeper Hope Beaumont.

faintingviolet’s #CBR4 review #38: Timeless by Gail Carriger

At long last I made it to book 5 of the Parasol Protectorate series. We find Lady Alexia Maccon, formerly Tarabotti, ensconced in married life to Lord Maccon, alpha of the now London Pack. At the conclusion of book four, Heartless, the pack had been forced to move into town to accommodate swarming vampires and Timeless finds the pack and their alphas two years later dealing with their daughter Prudence and her adoptive father Lord Akeldama. All of it is very complicated and perhaps the reason why book four was my least favorite of the series. But Timeless does not serve its purpose as the final chapter in the Parasol Protectorate series.

This go around Alexia receives a summons from Matakara, Queen of the Alexandria hive and the oldest living vampire. The Maccons, along with the Tunstells and their acting troupe, whom they take along as cover, set out for Egypt where, inevitably, they encounter adversity, mystery and adventure.  The entire first part of this book is a retread and filler, with the author re-visiting some of the more memorable places and characters from the previous books – the hat shop now run by Biffy, the Woolsey Hive (with notable appearances from Countess Nadasdy and Mabel Dair), the fleeting return of Felicity Loontwill in a flurry of spite, the sudden reappearance of Lady Kingair and a single appearance of Guatve Trouve, in order to deliver a replacement parasol after the two intervening years to name just a few.

After the lazy intro, the meat of the plot and the wrap up were rushed and left this reader feeling emotionally manipulated. But the most disappointing thing of all is that the main mysteries of the books – the Order of the Brass Octopus, the nature of the soulless/soulstealers - remain unanswered pretty much completely, unless you count the fact that Alexia’s abilities are discovered to be cancelled out when she is submerged in water. We also spend no time further investigating the BUR or the Shadow Council, or any other aspects of the supernatural world in Carriger’s universe.

Noting all that, there is one storyline in the book that kept me from giving up on it entirely.  The relationship between Biffy and Lyall. It was nice to have a homosexual relationship which was genuinely sweet and not reduced to stereotypes. I also appreciated the elegant solution introduced by Carriger to deal with Connall’s immortality and that our protagonist never voices any concern about becoming more aged than her love. But the thing I like most is Alexia’s personality remains very much her own, with her own separate interests, friends and responsibilities.  I am however ready to be done with Alexia and her world.

This post, like all the others, is cross-posted

faintingviolet’s #CBR4 review #37: The Yard by Alex Grecian

Can we talk about the cover of this one for a minute? Because surely I was misled. I enjoyed Alex Grecian’s The Yard and I picked it up by chance because my holds at the library weren’t in yet. I work at a Historic Site in New Jersey and we are hosting a Steampunk event again this year so I try to read some Steampunky literature to get into the mood. I saw that particular scrolling typeface on The Yard’s cover; read the dust jacket to make sure it sounded interesting. Via Goodreads: “Victorian London is a cesspool of crime, and Scotland Yard has only twelve detectives—known as “The Murder Squad”—to investigate countless murders every month. Created after the Metropolitan Police’s spectacular failure to capture Jack the Ripper, The Murder Squad suffers rampant public contempt. They have failed their citizens. But no one can anticipate the brutal murder of one of their own . . . one of the twelve . . .When Walter Day, the squad’s newest hire, is assigned the case of the murdered detective, he finds a strange ally in the Yard’s first forensic pathologist, Dr. Bernard Kingsley. Together they track the killer, who clearly is not finished with The Murder Squad . . . but why?” and decided that this one was for me.

So about the cover – the scrolling, large, black capital letter only typeface has become short hand for novels in the Steampunk family. And I realized about 10 pages in, that this book is not steampunk at all, there is absolutely no anachronistic anything throughout. Now, if you want to talk about cutting edge technology for the time, the 1890s in this case, there is a great deal of time spent with the detectives and coroner talking about the new-fangled fingerprint technology and proper science of autopsy here for you.

While not the Steampunk novel I was looking for…

faintingviolet’s #CBR4 review #36: Cut to the Quick by Kate Ross

I’m gullible when it comes to mysteries. Every red herring will throw me off the scent. Cut to the Quick by Kate Ross brings a new set of mysteries and a new amateur sleuth from the Regency period into my life to continue confusing me for a few books. The sleuth in question is Julian Kestrel, the reigning dandy of London in the 1820s, famous for his elegant clothes and his imperturbable composure.

Cut to the Quick was Ross’s first novel, but you’d be hard pressed to guess so. The only authorial problem I had with the novel was the  beginning. The book opens with a Mr. Craddock congratulating himself on tricking Mr. Hugh Fontclair into having to propose marriage to his daughter. The engagement happens and in the next chapter Hugh is sowing his wild oats at a gambling establishment and we are introduced to Julian Kestrel who rescues him from public embarrassment. In the third chapter we are with Julian as he receives a surprise invite some weeks later to be Hugh’s best man and house guest. It’s all very choppy and with so many of the characters introduced in quick succession it made it difficult to keep track of everyone.

When Kestrel goes to stay with the Fontclairs at their country house, he is caught in the crossfire of the warring families, as the Craddocks are already arrived. Once settled into the dynamic and expecting Julian Kestrel to discover what blackmail is forcing the Fontclairs to agree to the wedding a dead body shows up. Kestrel sets out to solve the crime, since the body was found in his bed. The strength of this book is the twining of the two mysteries, which was compelling and well-plotted. As for Julian Kestrel, he’s fairly good company although I prefer his manservant and the local doctor. It should be said that all the supporting characters, more than ten, are well developed. Overall an enjoyable and quick read. I’ve already requested the next Julian Kestrel novel, A Broken Vessel, from my library system.

faintingviolet’s #CBR4 review #35: Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell

In Unfamiliar Fishes Sarah Vowell brings to life the time in the history of the United States when it transforms into a world power for the first time and begins to most closely resemble the United States we have today.  Set with a Hawaiian backdrop Vowell explores the reality of missionaries and imperialistic conquests at the end of the Spanish-American War. And helps explain those land issues you didn’t understand while watching The Descendants.

Vowell accomplishes in her writing a goal I can only hope to dream of achieving. She makes history relatable and interesting while also doing the legwork and primary source research to substantiate the thesis. More here.

faintingviolet’s #CBR4 review #34: Star Island by Carl Hiaasen

Let’s get the hard part over with first. This is not my favorite Hiaasen, and generally it falls below most of the contemporary fiction I’ve read this cannonball. In many ways Star Island is an entirely typical Hiaasen novel: its set in South Florida, it features a storyline about real estate developers and politicians trampling pristine environments, is a morality tale about the excesses of Hollywood and South Beach, and features everyone’s favorite former governor turned hermit – Skink.

Everything is better with Skink, which is how I know that I didn’t really enjoy this book because I didn’t like half of Skink’s storyline.  And the half I didn’t enjoy was the half that featured the novel’s main protagonists – Cherry Pye and Ann DeLusia.  Cherry Pye (née Cheryl Bunterman) is a pop star since the tender age of fourteen—and about to attempt a comeback from her latest drug-and-alcohol disaster in the vein of every lurid tabloid story you’ve ever heard. Then there’s Ann DeLusia her undercover stunt double.  Ann portrays Cherry whenever the singer is too ‘indisposed’ to go out in public, but Cherry has no idea she exists.

The plot revolves around Ann’s job of doubling Cherry and a photographer determined to get the ultimate shots of Cherry before what everyone, including her manager, is sure is going to happen. Her untimely death. But before this storyline can get underway Ann gets caught up with Skink. Skink ends up ‘rescuing’ Ann from a car crash along Card Sound Road in the Keys and becomes invested in the young actress after he uses her as part of his scheme to get back at an unscrupulous real estate developer. This ends up being good for Ann and bad for Cherry.

Hiaasen has created a character in Cherry who is by all definitions awful, and he writes about her with contempt in his authorial voice. Which is a problem; this is an antagonist to Ann but a protagonist in her own right so making her a punching bag does not in any way help the reader become more involved in the stories of her parents, management, publicists, security, or boyfriends. There is also a lot of lazy descriptions of Cherry whom he refers to constantly as the former Cheryl Bunterman. I would’ve preferred an acronym (TFCB).

I’d say to steer clear of this one. It’s too long, too convoluted and not even the comic send-ups of the characters futures in the epilogue were satisfying.

faintingviolet’s #CBR4 review #33: Black Hills by Nora Roberts

I was prepared to give Black Hills a relatively glowing review as I was working my way through the 472 page book. And then I came to the last few chapters and I had some big problems with the handling of the narrative. So here I am, questioning things which I had previously been quite happy with. But let’s start at the beginning.

Nora Robert’s Black Hills is the story of Cooper Sullivan and Lillian Chance. The book begins when they are 11 and 9 years of age respectively. Lil is a native of the titular Black Hills and Coop has been sent to his grandparents’ South Dakota ranch by his battling parents for the summer. Over time Coop and Lil form a deep and lasting friendship. As chapters progress we jump ahead with the characters as they grow up and Coop returns to the Black Hills from his turbulent home in New York for summer vacations.

Relationships change as Lil gets ready to head off to college. She knows she wants two things for sure for her future –  a wildlife refuge on her family’s land, and Coop. The conflict is Coop knows that he cannot stay with Lil as their relationship progresses because he feels he will hold her back from her goals and that he must make his own way. Fast forward 12 years and our leads have a new set of problems to deal with including, once again, each other.

This is all pretty standard fare, especially for a Roberts novel. I began to have some unease with the story at the introduction of the big bad. Roberts has a set way of introducing the type of big bad which appears in this novel as well as  The Search, and Montana Sky. The reader is given a chance to see the world through the point of view of the big bad before the  protagonists are introduced to or made aware of him. Then their nefarious deeds and plans are told to the reader through the big bad’s own first person planning. Other than the familiarity of the type of big bad (someone out to hunt our female protagonist) I had no real problems. Until it was time to resolve the conflicts.

There are two major conflicts in the book: first, the standard ‘will they or won’t they?’ and the second ‘will the big bad be able to enact his plan?’ The novel is well paced-  the reader has time to invest in who Lil and Coop were as children, how their relationship evolved, her parents, his grandparents, their friends, the preserve, and the looming danger. And then it seems Roberts looked down and realized she had written over 400 pages and hadn’t resolved either major conflict. There is a major sea change  at page 427 and then it’s a downhill run to the conclusion some 45 pages later.

This reader was left wanting for more, since so many storylines had been given a quick, glossed over ending as the protagonists dealt with the big bad.  As for the conclusion, the big bad is dispatched and two pages later the book is over. Roberts doesn’t tend to write epilogues for her novels, but it isn’t unheard of. This one was in definite need of an epilogue that firmly wrapped up some storylines after the final conflict resolution to give at least this reader a sense of completion. Am I saying don’t read it? No, but I am saying that you should know what you’re getting in to with this one.

This review is cross-posted

faintingviolet’s #CBR4 review #32: Shockaholic by Carrie Fisher

*Comedians Summer Tour Book #4*

 

I don’t know what I was thinking. Here’s review #32 –

 

If you’re memory was escaping you, and you were making conscious choices to let it go, what would you record for yourself? What would you choose to remember? This dilemma is what frames the beginning of Carrie Fisher’s Shockaholic. For those unaware Ms. Fisher suffers from severe depression linked to a substance abuse problem. In order to deal with both of those issues she has taken what has become the last stop on the therapeutic path – electroconvulsive therapy (that would be the new and improved shock therapy to those in the know). The upside of this therapy for Ms. Fisher is a brain which finally feels that it is working; the downside of the therapy – gaps in memory which can be months long.

 

I decided to pick this one up based on my love of her stage version of Wishful Drinking in which Ms. Fisher takes the audience through her personal history – the story of how she went from being the baby of stars to a star in her own right to Princess Leia forever. Shockaholic is where Ms. Fisher delves into the events in her life which lead her to ECT, what the after effects of ECT have been for her, and how it all culminated in a relationship with her father at the end of his life.

 

The good parts of this one include Ms. Fisher’s delicious way with words. If you’ve ever seen her on an interview chat show or one of her stage performances the book reads the way she speaks. There is also the delicious voyeuristic part of any Hollywood memoir where you feel as though you have been told things that perhaps you shouldn’t really know. The bad parts? Mostly that’s the choppy, uneven nature of the writing and the constant reminders that the ECT has robbed Ms. Fisher of some of her memories. However the memories which survive make for a fun ride.

 

This one, like all the others, is cross-posted.