Blew Moon

My other copy room bookshelf find this one didn't rank quite as high as Pearl Cove did, however it wasn't too bad. I confess that the beginning pulled me in, then my interest tapered off as the book went on. Thea the heroine is seduced into running off with a fortune hunter, who then rapes her in order to ensure that she has to marry him. When her brother shows up to defend her honor and take her home, they duel and both are killed. Ten years later Thea is notorious, a wealthy woman who lives on her own. Her reputation has sullied any chance of marriage and forced her younger half sister to marry a gambler and lout (great word isn't it? I like lout). 

Enter Patrick Blackburn an American planter from Natchez, Mississippi (a less sexier hometown I've never heard of, it ain't exactly Tara) recently arrived and visiting his mother who left his father alone in America to return to her beloved London. Remind anyone of Legends of the Fall? Me! His mother is being blackmailed about a youthful indiscretion and when he goes to deal with the situation who does he run into but Thea, literally, who is also being blackmailed by her loser brother-in-law to cover his gambling debts. She runs off into the night after hitting him. By a strange coincidence someone else has it in for bad bro and knocks Patrick out and slits bro's throat. A fine pickle everyone finds themselves in, and so the story goes.

The concept is good and the story held my attention for the most part, however the character development fell off in places especially in terms of secondary characters. Often people would pop in and out with no apparent purpose and often characters would suddenly have a huge scene or play a big role in the plot but you weren't really sure why or where the hell they came from. In my opinion this hurt the story, I like to know all the gritty details, or at least feel like I know exactly where I am and what everyone is about. In this case it felt incomplete. Good general plot, but it could have been better if the characters were better.

Going Rogue

I come from Rhode Island, somebody had to. Okay I blatantly stole that from Bill Bryson in The Lost Continent, however it is, in a way, true. I have been asked more times than I care to admit if Rhode Island is the long island off New York. Seriously. If you ever needed a scathing indictment of the American education system, there it is. People don't even know that where I come from is a state most of the time, so when I see a book someone has actually written about it I have to read it.

Now I must confess that I have read other books either totally or partially set in Rhode Island that frankly are not written by anyone with a true knowledge of the place. They might have read about it or be cross referencing from other stories, but its clear they don't know the nature of the beast. Bruce DeSilva, a former writer for the Providence Journal (known by locals as the ProJo) is very familiar with the best. 

Rogue Island is a noir with a down on his luck journalist Liam Mulligan, at its center. He knows every street in the city  of Providence, and almost every person on it. He comes from Rhode Island and isn't afraid to let his freak flag fly. Investigating an ugly and dirty series of arsons in his home neighborhood of Mount Hope the story is full of wonderfully gritty realism. The framework of a traditional noir is there, the plot and the dialogue, however its crossed with a more modern streetwise flavor reminiscent of Scorsese or Tarentino. Every review I have read of this book is a hit. Fans of the genre will love it regardless of its setting, and those who live in the setting will love it even more. Its a slightly warped love letter, but then again all the best love stories are.

Gypsies, Tramps, and Theives

God bless whoever the first woman was that decided they could take something as inherantly unsexy as a gypsy (or their PC name Romany) and make it into something we pant over. THe dark hair, the broodying eyes, the definace, their rebel without a cause. They sleep out under the stars and can wear fringe and still be masculine! Hot damn. I'm pretty sure the same woman did the PR for pirates, which are pretty disgusting if you really think about it, and made it into Captain Jack Sparrow AKA Johnny Depp.

Mine Till Midnight is the first of the 2 Hathaway sister stories involving gypsies. The second Seduce Me At Sunrise I had already read, however this one was unavailable at the time and I saw it while wandering by the paperbacks. I also gave you the peep show, the cover and the insert page. Enjoy the gypsy goodness. Cam Rohan, the gypsy in question has gone civilized which makes him an outcast to his people. He tries to act the tough guy, but he's really a big softie. The only remote gypsy like personality trait he retains is the rape and pillage tendency, again not normally sexy but it works.

As always the Hathaways provide some good entertainment, and this one is especially interesting because they throw it down old style. It gives you the dirty details of the real dark days when Leo was falling down drunk and Win was half dead in the falling down bee-infested estate. The other three books are all set a few years later so it gives you a different perspective.

In terms of the romance its a little fast paced and ridiculous. If anything it seems like a much more modern anti-courtship, where Bea Hathaway gets tired of cleaning up other peoples messes and relieves her stress with dirty gypsy sex, lots of dirty gypsy sex. Not that I'm complaining, in fact its quite enjoyable. The romance itself falls to a distant second, as usual  the family drama but that is part of this series' charm. Overall a vast improvement over Love In The Afternoon with a better story and much more enjoyable character interactions.

The City That Care Forgot

I've never been to New Orleans, but then again I feel like its one of those places that you know even if you've never boon there. I've seen Easy Rider and tripped out in St. Louis cemetery No. 1, Interview with the Vampire and seen how the wealthy nocturnal citizens live. Penelope Williamson's Mortal Sins and Wages of Sin give a gritty and damp trip down every street and alley. C.S. Graham's Tobie Guiness and her weird remote viewing talents live in a shotgun in the Irish Cannel. I rode a Streetcar Named Desire with Stella, and Stanley, and Blanche. Then there was Christopher Rice's debut novel, A Density of Souls that was an eerie foreshadowing of the apocalyptic times to come in the wake of Katrina and Rita. That, we've all seen and even five years later the evidence lingers. 

That being said I have never been a huge Anne Rice fan. I saw the movie of Interview with the Vampire before I read the book and I liked it, the book I thought was really slow. I got maybe five chapters in the The Vampire Lestat (I remember siting in a HoneyDew Donuts near the URI campus reading it and eating a maple donut, weird don't ask me why the vivid memory) and got bored with it, I thought the rock star thing was just silly. I also tried to work my way through her new books (well not so new now) about Christ the Lord and frankly they still weren't good enough to hold my attention. Having read all about The Witching Hour, the first hefty tome in the Mayfair Witches saga I may give it a whirl, though every literary review warns against it. Nine hundred plus pages is a big commitment.

As for the travel guide itself, meh. She has to spend so much time explaining the geography that her actual descriptions of the locations fall short. Other than that some slight organizational make it difficult to navigate. Now I have gone this distance on sightseeing many times, my friend Alyssa is still bitter about me dragging her to the In Cold Blood house, however Joy Dickinson goes beyond stalker and I actually felt a little guilty at times reading about the author's "investigations" into the true Anne Rice stories of the city. Maybe I'm a creepy stalker to, just for reading it, whatever, if I go to the Big Easy, believe me it'll be for the beignets at Cafe du Monde.  

Pearls of Wisdom

So working in a new school you need to find your way around. Granted there are only a few really necessary things you need to locate : a working toilet, a refrigerator, a microwave, the supply closet, and the copy machine. While scoping out the copy machine I scanned the inevitable collection of crap that tends to accumulate over the years in such a communal space. Scrap paper, really old magazines, catalogues for those terrible at home parties (Tastefully Simple, Pampered Chef, etc.), angry notices about how to change the toner, and a bookshelf. Such bookshelves are a treasure, because they are the home of the lost book. Some are discards from the school library that have been salvaged, some are donated, others simply are picked up from the hallway floor and make a home their. I love these kinds of bookshelves, and it is where I found Pearl Cove.

I had read one other Elizabeth Lowell novel, or rather closer to a novella called Outlaw. Not being much for cowboys I wasn't blown away by it, and found the repressed sexuality as a result of date rape a little heavy, incongruously heavy for the subject matter. I must confess however that I really like Pearl Cove. First aside from either the romance story between Hannah and Archer or the mystery of who murdered Len, Hannah's husband and Archer's half-brother or the thriller-style race to find the missing Black Trinity necklace...I just found it an interesting book to read in terms of back story.  

Romances are notorious for being cookie cutter, falling into neat categories; Regency, Western, Paranormal, Medieval... the list goes on and on. Trends come in and out of fashion, however when you're writing something as mundane as boy-meets-girl and they have sex and fall in love, what sets it apart are the details. I'm never one to put a book down because of historical or factual inaccuracies (regardless of how much they irritate me) however it definitely colors my opinion of the work as a whole. Going in I knew nothing about pearl farming or the pearl trade and I have to say I was very impressed with the amount of research that Elizabeth Lowell must have done, because it was so real and so exact that it almost eclipsed the other elements of the story. Bottom line, it was fascinating to read, because she got the details right, or at least damn close. 

Having not read the other Donovan family stories I can't say how Pearl Cove compares, however it seems like a solid set of ideas for a series, even if the Donovans aren't quite as cool as Jo Beverly's Mallorens. There is a certain spy school, trained assassin element that at time is a little far fetched but Lowell doesn't overplay that hand too much. The romance runs hot an cold, but it is eventually satisfying and there is a rough-and-tumble, thunder down under appeal to the sex. The line "if you want sex or protection press six" is also a real winner in my estimation. In the end Pearl Cove is a sailboat book, its not about the destination, its about the journey to get there. The way the story develops along the way is this books greatest strength, and character development, while slow is eventually pretty solid. I'm tempted to have another go at Elizabeth Lowell, I'll have to do some more shopping in the copy room.

Every Time A Bell Rings....

It cannot be understated, Mary Balogh must be doing some serious thinking about the dichotomy of good and evil, because the angel-devil obsession in this novel is enough to send you over to the dark side. I have to admit, it has not been a good year for me and romances so far, and this was nothing different. Though a look at other reviews seems to show I am not alone. Cassandra, our heroine, is a widow who barely survived an abusive marriage and was accused of her husband's murder and cut off without a penny by his heir. She and her rag tag group of followers (companions, maids, illegitimate children, one eyed dogs, clowns... no wait were there actual clowns?) are on the verge of being out on the street. So she remakes her old dress, Scarlett O'Hara style (minus the drapes) and goes off to find herself a rich protector.

Stephen, an earl and the title angel (who by the by is way less cool than Clarence in It's A Wonderful Life) is blonde and wealthy. He stumbles over Cassandra (literally) and get pulled into her web of lust and deceit. However he regains his conscience after a bout of very lackluster sex (I think they enjoyed it, I'm only speaking for myself, I found it very lackluster) and sets about saving her and making an honest woman out of this soiled dove.

There were really no redeeming qualities to this book. Every word that came out of their mouths sounded like a public service announcement, protesting for equal rights and challenging sin. The Regency detail was non-existent, in fact much of the story was historically off base, some of it by decades. The character's were frustrating and had few endearing qualities and the central mystery, of who killed Cassandra's husband... well to be honest I don't think anyone, even those involved gave a shit. I'm not one for saying books are worthless, but for Seducing an Angel, I'll make an exception. If Stephen had been the angel assigned to George Bailey, I guarantee he would have jumped.

The High Life

So this was a slip up, this poor book was read sometime back in late January and I happened to notice when I was scanning my book list that it had never been posted. Sometimes I add several books to the list at once, which is easy if I have them in front of me. However all too often I've already returned them to the library and have to rely on my memory, never a good idea. My mother will routinely ask me to bring her something from another room and en route I forget and walk right past it. Oh yeah, its that bad.

If you have read the poem The Highwayman, you should be all set, in fact you can probably skip the book altogether. It tells the story of the daughter of the doomed couple from Noyes poem, who makes the mistake of trying to rob the runaway son of a nobleman. He helps her recover from the injuries that he gives her and they reach a sort of weird camaraderie, partially over the fate of a deserter who stumbles upon them in search of shelter. In the end they of course turn vigilante and steal from his greedy father in a Robin Hood-esque ending. God triumphs and we can all sleep the restful sleep usually reserved for the just and Errol Flynn. 

I was expecting a little more shoot 'em up action, and while there is some of the traditional highwayman action this is not an adventure story. It gets very wordy and overly descriptive time and time again until you want to scream, "He's already built the fire, we get it!" or "Yes its very significant that she let's Will wear her dead father's clothes!" but somehow you still really don't care. Also a good portion of the story is given over to the retelling of the poem, which if you are familiar with it is a waste of a good seventy pages or so. In case you hadn't picked up on it, while I felt bad for not writing this one up, it really was rather forgettable.

Only The Shadow Knows

C.S. Harris and I go way back, not literally, because she is fabulous and glamourous and has lived the life I would have were I smarter, wealthier, and better looking...but nonetheless I have been a long time fan as I discussed in my post on The Babylonian Codex her join venture with her husband Steve Harris. For some strange reason however, Where Shadows Dance, the sixth book in her Sebastian St. Cyr mystery series has been nigh on impossible to track down. The publisher, a subdvision of Penguin books is one of the chains that is withholding shipments to Boarders and despite the past popularity of the books, in fall of 2009 when What Remains of Heaven came out there were dozens of pre-release holds on several libraries copies, not a single library pre-ordered the new installment this time. It was weird, I'm not sure what happened. I will say that the release schedule, formerly a consistent fall release was screwed up this time, delayed until spring perhaps because of her C.S. Graham series release which was the end of November. People get used to a certain schedule, and if it changes sometimes they loose interest. That being said, I broke down and ordered the book from Amazon (at $13.17 it was only priced like a dollar fifty higher than the trade paperback of What Remains of Heaven).

I, like many readers, have been eagerly anticipating the reveal of the Sebastian-Hero conflict started in Where Serpents Sleep. Sebastian, everyones favorite soldier/viscount/ tough detective and Hero, the confirmed old maid daughter of his enemy Lord Jarvis decided a roll in the hay was a good idea when faced with death back in book four, resulting in the inconvenient pregnancy in book five and now the saga continues. As the series has gone on Sebastian's story has come more to the forefront, both in terms f his love life and his mysterious parentage. It went from perhaps 25% of the plot in What Angels Fear, the first mystery to morel like 75% not six books later. The question of whether or not this hurts the mystery plot is up for debate. Does it make for a better more satisfying story? Without a doubt, but there are some who beleive that a true mystery is just that. Lucky for you and C.S. Harris I'm not one of them. 

In terms of mystery I'm pleased to say that this was much better than What Remains of Heaven, which had all the makings of a good mystery featuring a fresh corpse found side by side in an ancient crypt with a long-ago murder victim... there was espionage, a secret baby, spousal abuse, Benjamin Franklin's son (random I know), but in the end it just fizzled out and died. Where Shadows Dance was a meatier, better plotted mystery, much more reminiscent of the shockingly gory and weird stuff that was thrown at us in the good old Sebastian St. Cyr stories. He faces the challenge of how does one investigate a murder that no ones knows has been committed. His surgeon friend Paul Gibson discovers this when examining the corpse which he has paid to have stolen from a city graveyard.

Now trying to put the murder victim back together again like a gory Humpty Dumpty provides an element of slapstick, I guarantee a mildly disgusted belly laugh at the very least. If anything Hero's presence at Sebastian's side lends itself to telling of the story, mainly because you never know what side she's really on. If this were the 1950's Katherine Hephburn would play her in the film version, a la Adam's Rib. They make a good team and I'm sure St. Cyr junior when it arrives will add a little something as well. 

I will say that the body count does get a little high towards the end, a bit Tarentino and unbelievable. I don't think its necessary to kill off every other suspect just to show your audience who the real killer is... but artist's choice. The mystery is still good, if there are a few unbelievable points or very loose ends Harris' storytelling is so good that you really don't mind. She lets you escape to the Regency period more fully than any other writer or the period I know, and that alone makes her books magical and a real treat.

Disappearing Dimples

Flavia has competition for my favorite historical cozy. A new books shelf cruising find I enjoyed this one far more than I expected at first. It looked cute, but in reality it was well written, an unusual glance at the time period and setting, full of realistic and authentic characters, and a book about teachers that warmed the cockles of my spinster school marm heart. And you thought I never had anything nice to say about anything, didn't you?

Set in rural Georgia on the home front in 1942 it is definitely historical fiction and a mystery, and the mystery, set in war time has an element of the spy story in it. To term it Southern gothic may be a stretch, however there is a Ma and Pa Kettle aspect to the dialect and characters that sets it apart. Charlie, the heroine is a school teacher, and not exactly the detective. Miss Dimple the true spinster school marm and beloved first grade teacher goes missing right before Thanksgiving, so in-between making Pilgrim hats and bidding soldiers farewell the school staff have to figure out where she went. 

THe story is interesting because even though Charlie is the main character it jumps around a lot, changing perspective often. In a way Charlie doesn't solve the mystery, its a group effort. Like everything else the town folk all chip in to help save the day. Its very sweet, almost threatening to get saccharin sweet at times, but if you've ever lived in a small town its very true to life. These people really do exist. Interwoven are lots of details regarding the hardships of life, from rationing to sending off beloved soldiers. Charlie faces a conflict between wanting to stay loyal to her GI beau and falling for her best friend's flame. Te love story stays light and helps to relieve some of the tension. Miss Dimple herself shines as the beacon of reason and practicality, in fact her scenes are some of the funniest. I was surprised to see that many reviewers sort of slammed this one (then again they like a lot of books I loathe) most seemed to think that the author pigeon-holed herself, writing a book that appealed to only a very specific audience. I can't really say, I've never read a mystery set in that time and place before. I though it was fresh and very cute. It made me show my dimples.

License to Gild

You knew it had to happen eventually, I broke down and read a nonfiction book. Seriously, I do read nonfiction, however not always for pleasure and often I jump around and only read the parts I'm interested in. For example I read bits of The Origins of the Franco-American Colony in Woonsocket, RI which I picked up the same day as Gilded, it was very good and interesting... that is the parts I read. I skimmed a lot and read about a third of the book in detail. The question is, does that count? In my eyes not really, which is why it doesn't go on the list or get featured on the Headcase Bookcase. That and I find many nonfiction books are so narrow in their focus that they lack general appeal. That being said I don't think Gilded is one of those nonfiction books.

I'm a native Rhode Islander, I grew up surrounded by the legends of Newport and have read countless books concerning the seaside playground of the Victorian rich and famous. When I took a class in college on the history of Rhode Island, our professor actually skipped over Newport and the Gilded Age because she knew we had already been there and done that. That being said, I think that Deborah Davis' book is a well-rounded, smartly structured, all access guide. She looks at all aspects of the so-called Gilded Age, from the initial construction of the seaside "cottages" to the question of street development, to pre-Gilded Age Newport, and finally beyond the Vanderbuilts and the Rockafellers to the servants and townspeople. 

I haven't read her other books, but I enjoyed Gilded enough to want to check them out. I think she takes a more lighthearted approach to nonfiction writing, and her brief chapters make it a nice book to dip in and out of. I confess I read it sporadically over several weeks. Also I don't think anyone can disagree that the story about the old society matron who declined a copy of Davis' book on the Black and White Ball on the grounds that Truman Capote "was a nasty, little homosexual" is equal parts shocking and hilarious.