Suddenly Sunday

It's time for Suddenly Sunday, a weekly meme hosted by Svea over at The Muse in the Fog. 

It's been a busy few weeks, leaving me with little time to blog or even read recently.   I did, however, manage to get a couple of books read - both quick reads - and one review posted here on my blog.   The review was for India Black by Carol K. Carr.   Despite all my excitement for the release of George R.R. Martin's A Dance with Dragons, I've gotten no further than the first page!  Things should start to get quieter around here over the next week or two, so that's when I plan to start to sink my teeth into it.   For the time being I've picked back up Elizabeth Chadwick's The Lady of the English and should finish it in the next day or two.   

Things should also start to pick up on my blog in the week ahead.  I'll post my review of Y.S. Lee's YA historical mystery The Agency: A Spy in the House, as well as my review of The Lady of the English.   Mailbox Monday will be back this week, too, after I missed last week's edition. 

On a social media-related note, I've just joined Twitter!  I'm still getting a feel for the service, but my husband tells me it's simple and that I'll catch on in no time :-)  You can follow me by clicking on the link on my sidebar. 

I hope everyone has a great week!

Book Review: India Black by Carol K. Carr

Synopsis courtesy of Chapters.indigo.ca 

When Sir Archibald Latham of the War Office dies from a heart attack while visiting her brothel, Madam India Black is unexpectedly thrust into a deadly game between Russian and British agents who are seeking the military secrets Latham carried. 

Blackmailed into recovering the missing documents by the British spy known as French, India finds herself dodging Russian agents-and the attraction she starts to feel for the handsome conspirator.

My Review

2 Stars 

India Black is the first novel in Carol K. Carr's Madam of Espionage mystery series.   Judging from the overwhelmingly positive reviews this novel has garnered, India Black, the title character, has charmed many a reader.   I, however, am not one of them.   

As the proprietress of Lotus House - a brothel - India Black is definitely not your average Victorian heroine.   She's characterized as feisty, strong-willed and used to fighting for what she wants.  When a client turns up dead in her establishment, India becomes unexpectedly embroiled in the high stakes game of international espionage.   While this has the makings for a good story, it is undone by its numerous implausibilities and lack of character development.    Although I liked India, Carr has given her heroine an insufficient back story, therefore leaving one with little knowledge of her even by the story's end.  Furthermore, the hero, British agent French, remains mostly an enigma throughout the novel, as are the story's villains.   Perhaps further character development will occur in later novels.   Regardless, the book's under developed characters have left me with little interest in pursing this series. 

Notwithstanding the implausibility of the plot and lack of character development, my biggest issue with this novel is India's  poorly explained acquisition of a comprehensive knowledge of the geopolitical situation of Great Britain, Russia and Turkey/Ottoman Empire.   It is extremely difficult to accept how a Victorian madam, whose limited back story hints at no formal education, could have acquired such a solid grasp of international affairs.   Carr explains that India's acquired knowledge is a result of gleaning bits and pieces of information from her various clients.   Yet this does not go far enough to explain India's encyclopedic understanding of the world around her,  an understanding most people of the Victorian age wouldn't possess.   

Despite my criticisms, I do feel this novel was clearly written and that the characters have potential. 

 

Travel Tuesday: Caerphilly Castle, Wales

I missed my Travel Tuesday post last week, so I thought I'd make up for it by sharing a few pictures from one of my favourite castles: Caerphilly Castle, which is in southern Wales.   I had the opportunity to visit Caerphilly a couple of years ago and was impressed by its size.   Given little restoration of the Castle has taken place, it was not hard to imagine the Castle in all its glory way back in the 13th and 14th centuries.    

Caerphilly Castle is the second largest castle in Great Britain (Windsor Castle is the largest).   Construction began during the 13th century by Gilbert de Clare, Lord of Glamorgan.    More information on this castle can be found at: http://www.castlewales.com/caerphil.html

Literary Link:

Caerphilly Castle is featured in Susan Higginbotham's novel The Traitor's Wife,  which is about Eleanor le Despenser, niece to Edward II and wife of Hugh le Despenser (the younger). 

Mailbox Monday

It's time for Mailbox Monday,  a weekly meme posted by book bloggers to share with their readers the wonderful books they received over the past week.    Mailbox Monday is a travelling meme, and is being hosted for the month of July by Gwendolyn over at A Sea of Books. 

It was another great book week for me!  I'm really looking forward to cracking open each of the new books that arrived in my mailbox this past week.    So, without further ado, here is my mailbox:


Hothouse Flower by Lucinda Riley (synopsis courtesy of amazon.ca):

This is a heart-rending page turner which sweeps from war-torn Europe to Thailand and back again ...As a child Julia Forrester spent many idyllic hours in the hothouse of Wharton Park estate, where her grandfather tended the exotic flowers. So when a family tragedy strikes, Julia returns to the tranquility of Wharton Park and its hothouse. Recently inherited by charismatic Kit Crawford, the estate is undergoing renovation. This leads to the discovery of an old diary, prompting the pair to seek out Julia's grandmother to learn the truth behind a love affair that almost destroyed Wharton Park. Julia is taken back to the 1940s where the fortunes of young couple Olivia and Harry Crawford will have terrible consequences on generations to come. For as war breaks out Olivia and Harry are cruelly separated... 

The Beauty Chorus by Kate Lord Brown (synopsis courtesy of Chapters.indigo.ca):

New Year's Eve, 1940: Evie Chase, the beautiful debutante daughter of a rich and adoring RAF commander, listens wistfully to the swing music drifting out from the ballroom, unable to join in the fun. With bombs falling nightly in London, she is determined that the coming year will bring a lot more than dances, picnics and tennis matches. She is determined to make a difference to the war effort. 5th January, 1941: Evie curses her fashionable heels as they skid on the frozen ground of her local airfield. She is here to join the ATA, the civilian pilots who ferry Tiger Moths and Spitfires to bases across war-torn Britain. Two other women wait nervously to join up: Stella Grainger, a forlorn young mother who has returned from Singapore without her baby boy and Megan Jones, an idealistic teenager who has never left her Welsh village. Billeted together in a tiny cottage in a sleepy country village, Evie, Stella and Megan must learn to live and work together. Brave, beautiful and fiercely independent, these women soon move beyond their different backgrounds as they find romance, confront loss, and forge friendships that will last a lifetime.

India Black by Carol K. Carr (synopsis courtesy of Chapters.indigo.ca):

When Sir Archibald Latham of the War Office dies from a heart attack while visiting her brothel, Madam India Black is unexpectedly thrust into a deadly game between Russian and British agents who are seeking the military secrets Latham carried. 

Blackmailed into recovering the missing documents by the British spy known as French, India finds herself dodging Russian agents-and the attraction she starts to feel for the handsome conspirator.

The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma (synopsis courtesy of Chapters.indigo.ca):

Set in Victorian London with characters real and imagined, The Map of Time boasts a triple-play of intertwined plots in which a skeptical H.G. Wells is called upon to investigate purported incidents of time travel and thereby save the lives of an aristocrat in love with a murdered prostitute from the past; of a woman bent on fleeing the strictures of Victorian society; and of his very own wife, who may have become a pawn in a 4th-dimensional plot to murder the authors of Dracula, The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds, in order to alter their identities and steal their fictional creations.  

But, what happens if we change history?  Felix J. Palma raises such questions in The Map of Time. Mingling fictional characters with real ones, Palma weaves a historical fantasy as imaginative as it is exciting, a story full of love and adventure that also pays homage to the roots of science fiction while transporting its readers to a fascinating Victorian London for their own taste of time travel.


What did you get in your mailbox this week?  



 

Top Ten: My Favourite Works of Historical Fiction

Since I don't have any reviews to share at the moment, I thought I'd share my top ten favourite works of historical fiction instead.   I think it's pretty obvious from my list that I love epic works of historical fiction set primarily in England during the medieval and Tudor eras, don't you?  

My Favorite Works of Historical Fiction

(1) The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman.   Nobody does historical fiction better than Sharon Kay Penman and I think this novel, about the Wars of the Roses and Richard III, is her finest yet.
 







(2) Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.   Mantel brings Oliver Cromwell to life in this novel set in the court of Henry VIII.   Readers seem to either love or hate this novel, and I fall firmly in the love camp.   I thought it was absolutely brilliant and can't wait for the promised sequel. 








(3) When Christ and His Saints Slept by Sharon Kay Penman.   Another fine example of why Penman is a master of historical fiction.  This novel, the first in Penman's series about the Plantagenets, follows the battle for the English throne between King Stephen and Empress Matilda, the mother of Henry II. 







(4) Devil's Brood by Sharon Kay Penman.  The third installment in Penman's Plantagenet books, this one follows Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine and their grown children.   I'm looking forward to the release of the next book, Lionheart, this fall







(5) Katherine by Anya Seton.  Seton's classic novel tells of the love story between John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and Katherine Swynford.  

(6) Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.   This is the novel that started my love affair with historical fiction.  Pillars concerns the building of a Cathedral in the fictional English town of Kingsbridge during the 12th century.   The follow-up, World Without End, is pretty good, too. 

(7) The Last Queen by C.W. Gortner.   Gortner's novel of Queen Juana of Castile, often referred to as the Mad Queen, is a wonderfully written tale about one of history's lesser known queens. 









(8) Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd.   This is a multi-generational tale set in and around Sarum/ Salisbury, England.   This is my favourite of Rutherfurd's novels, but you really can't go wrong with any of them. 









(9) Elizabeth I by Margaret George.   Despite a love of the Tudor period,  I've never been much a fan of novels that feature Elizabeth I as a central figure primarily because I have issues with how authors have chosen to characterize  the queen.   George, however, brings the later years of Elizabeth's reign to life and has characterized Elizabeth in such a way as to make the reader understand why she is considered one of England's greatest monarchs. 

(10) The Greatest Knight by Elizabeth Chadwick.   This wonderful novel focuses on the life of William Marshall, who is considered one of the greatest knights of the medieval age.   If you haven't read any of Chadwick's novels, I definitely recommend you pick one up soon! 







Honourable mention:

(11) The Traitor's Wife by Susan Higginbotham.  Set during the reign of Edward II, this novel is about Edward's niece, Eleanor, and her husband Hugh le Despenser. 








So, are any of these novels on your own list of favourites?

Mailbox Monday

It's time for Mailbox Monday,  a weekly meme posted by book bloggers to share with their readers the wonderful books they received over the past week.    Mailbox Monday is a travelling meme, and is being hosted for the month of July by Gwendolyn over at A Sea of Books.  

I received some great books in my mailbox this week, including the book I have been most looking forward to reading for the last few years (A Dance with Dragons)!  All books are my own purchases.   So, without further ado, here is my mailbox:







A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin (synopsis from Chapters.indigo.ca):

In the aftermath of a colossal battle, the future of the Seven Kingdoms hangs in the balance-beset by newly emerging threats from every direction. In the east, Daenerys Targaryen, the last scion of House Targaryen, rules with her three dragons as queen of a city built on dust and death. But Daenerys has thousands of enemies, and many have set out to find her. As they gather, one young man embarks upon his own quest for the queen, with an entirely different goal in mind.

Fleeing from Westeros with a price on his head, Tyrion Lannister, too, is making his way to Daenerys. But his newest allies in this quest are not the rag-tag band they seem, and at their heart lies one who could undo Daenerys's claim to Westeros forever.

Meanwhile, to the north lies the mammoth Wall of ice and stone-a structure only as strong as those guarding it. There, Jon Snow, 998th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, will face his greatest challenge. For he has powerful foes not only within the Watch but also beyond, in the land of the creatures of ice.

From all corners, bitter conflicts reignite, intimate betrayals are perpetrated, and a grand cast of outlaws and priests, soldiers and skinchangers, nobles and slaves, will face seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Some will fail, others will grow in the strength of darkness. But in a time of rising restlessness, the tides of destiny and politics will lead inevitably to the greatest dance of all.

Before Versailles by Karleen Koen (synopsis from Chapters.indigo.ca):

Louis XIV is one of the best-known monarchs ever to grace the French throne. But what was he like as a young man-the man before Versailles?

After the death of his prime minister, Cardinal Mazarin, twenty-two-year-old Louis steps into governing France. He's still a young man, but one who, as king, willfully takes everything he can get-including his brother's wife. As the love affair between Louis and Princess Henriette burns, it sets the kingdom on the road toward unmistakable scandal and conflict with the Vatican. Every woman wants him. He must face what he is willing to sacrifice for love.

But there are other problems lurking outside the chateau of Fontainebleau: a boy in an iron mask has been seen in the woods, and the king's finance minister, Nicolas Fouquet, has proven to be more powerful than Louis ever thought-a man who could make a great ally or become a dangerous foe . . .

Meticulously researched and vividly brought to life by the gorgeous prose of Karleen Koen, Before Versailles dares to explore the forces that shaped an iconic king and determined the fate of an empire

The Lost Crown by Sarah Miller (synopsis from Chapters.indigo.ca)

Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia.  Like the fingers on a hand--first headstrong Olga; then Tatiana, the tallest; Maria the most hopeful for a ring; and Anastasia, the smallest.  These are the daughters of Tsar Nicholas II, grand duchesses living a life steeped in tradition and privilege.  They are each on the brink of starting their own lives, at the mercy of royal matchmakers.  The summer of 1914 is that precious last wink of time when they can still be sisters together--sisters that link arms and laugh, sisters that share their dreams and worries, and flirt with the officers of their imperial yacht.
But in a gunshot the future changes - for these sisters and for Russia.

As World War I ignites across Europe, political unrest sweeps Russia. First dissent, then disorder, mutiny - and revolution. For Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, the end of their girlhood together is colliding with the end of more than they ever imagined.

At the same time hopeful and hopeless, naive and wise, the voices of these sisters become a chorus singing the final song of Imperial Russia. Impeccably researched and utterly fascinating, this novel by acclaimed author Sarah Miller recounts the final days of Imperial Russia with lyricism, criticism and true compassion.

The Dark Enquiry by Deanna Raybourn (synopsis from Chapters.indigo.ca): 

Partners now in marriage and in trade, Lady Julia and Nicholas Brisbane have finally returned from abroad to set up housekeeping in London. But merging their respective collections of gadgets, pets and servants leaves little room for the harried newlyweds themselves, let alone Brisbane's private enquiry business.   

Among the more unlikely clients: Julia's very proper brother, Lord Bellmont, who swears Brisbane to secrecy about his case. Not about to be left out of anything concerning her beloved if eccentric family, spirited Julia soon picks up the trail of the investigation.  It leads to the exclusive Ghost Club, where the alluring Madame Séraphine holds evening séances…and not a few powerful gentlemen in thrall. From this eerie enclave unfolds a lurid tangle of dark deeds, whose tendrils crush reputations and throttle trust.  

Shocked to find their investigation spun into salacious newspaper headlines, bristling at the tension it causes between them, the Brisbanes find they must unite or fall. For Bellmont's sake and more they'll face myriad dangers born of dark secrets, the kind men kill to keep….


What books showed up in your mailbox this past week? 

Suddenly Sunday

Welcome to another addition of Suddenly Sunday, a weekly meme hosted by Svea at The Muse in the Fog where we share the exciting things that happened on our blog this past week.

It's been yet another quiet blogging week for me.   While I've been enjoying reading posts on other blogs, other than Mailbox Monday I had none of my own to share.   So, if I haven't been blogging, what have I been up to?  Well, I've been completely immersed in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series.   Still working through my series re-read, which I'm almost finished, in preparation for my read of A Dance with Dragons.  Martin's latest novel, which was released this past Tuesday, is now sitting on my shelf waiting to be read and I should be ready for it early next week.   I can't wait! 

Has anyone been to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II?  It's receiving fantastic reviews.   I hope to see it next weekend.   As much as I'm looking forward to seeing the movie it will also be a little sad knowing that once it's finished the series really will be over :-( 

Since the focus of my reading attention has been solely on A Song of Ice and Fire lately, I don't have much coming up by way of book reviews.  I will have my usual Mailbox Monday post this week and will try to post another Travel Tuesdays should I have time, but next week may be just as quiet blogging-wise as this past one.

I hope everyone has a great week.