‘Til Death Do Us Part, by Amanda Quick*-**

Posted on March 6, 2016 by seattlebookmama

tildeathdous I was looking for good historical fiction and ran across this novel, which is also a mystery and romance. It’s a little different from much of what I read, and reminds me a bit of Victoria Holt, whose work I read voraciously as a teenager and younger woman. I received the DRC courtesy of Net Galley and Berkley Publishing Group in exchange for an honest review. This title will be available to the public April 19, 2016.

Calista Langley is a spinster, which is what unmarried women were called a century ago. She runs salons in her home for the purpose of intellectual discussion, a chance for men and women to get to know one another in a socially acceptable setting before they commence the courting ritual. But Langley has a stalker. A man has been using a long-disused dumbwaiter to hoist himself up to her bedroom, where he can watch her in the shadows. He leaves grim mementos mori—associated with death—on her pillow for her to find. Her initials are etched in them, a particularly chilling detail. We know fairly early who it is that is doing this, but Calista herself does not know.

“This is what it had come to—a life lived on the razor edge of fear. The sense of being watched all the time and the ghastly gifts were playing havoc with her nerves…Her intuition was screaming at her, warning her that whoever was sending her the gifts was growing more obsessed and more dangerous with each passing day. But how did one fight a demon that lurked in the shadows?”

At about the same time, Trent Hastings has come to see her, convinced that she is corrupting his sister Eudora, a client and frequent guest at the salons held in Calista’s home.

The overall tone of the story is a trifle melodramatic for my taste right now, but if you had given me this book thirty or thirty-five years ago, I would have worn it out re-reading it and then passed it on to my friends. The romantic scenes are steamy yet tasteful . Quick can raise our interest to a higher level just building up to a kiss than many of the writers of erotica are able to do with everyone’s clothes on the ground and explicit information left, right, and center.

In fact, though I often make a point of letting my readers know when a book will be objectionable to conservative Christian readers, in this case I feel confident in saying you should be fine here. The language never gets hotter than an occasional “damnation!”

One thing that was especially interesting to me was the minute detail given to Victorian funeral customs and the odd accessories that were popular then. It never occurred to me, for example, that anyone would spend good money on a tear-catcher, but some folks did. For the more practical purchasers, the coffin bell is a handy way to let everyone know that you’re not dead after all, and would like out of this box, please!

All told, this was a fun, accessible read. I rate it 4 stars as a YA novel, and 3.5 stars rounded up for general audiences.

Work Like Any Other, by Virginia Reeves****

Posted on March 3, 2016 by seattlebookmama

worklikeanyother Reeves makes her debut here with a deeply moving, haunting tale of a man that tries to do the right thing and finds his entire life miserably, horribly gone wrong instead. Thank you to Net Galley and Scribner for the DRC; this book is available for purchase March 1, 2016.

Roscoe marries Marie, the woman of his dreams, a woman that speaks little but recognizes every bird call in the state of Alabama. When her father dies, he gives up being an electrician, work that he loves, in order to move to the farm they inherit. Unlike his father-in-law, Roscoe’s own father has always looked down on farming as a poor man’s last resort. Roscoe thinks he has found a compromise by bringing electricity, and with it mechanized farm tools, to Marie’s father’s farm; he won’t have to sweat in the fields, and he has found a way to continue doing the work her prefers. Pirating electricity from the lines out on the highway is against the law, but it’s nothing to make a man do hard time. If he is discovered, he’ll pay a fine and the electric company will install a meter. No harm, no foul.

That’s what he thinks, anyway.

Everything goes to hell in the blink of an eye when someone dies grabbing hold of a live wire located on his improvised set up. He is charged with manslaughter; with a halfway decent attorney, he should be able to get the sentence suspended or reduced, since no harm was intended, but Marie chooses not to hire anyone to represent him. She tells the state to give him a court appointed attorney, and instead she pays for an attorney for the man that has assisted him, knowing that the state of Alabama will come down harder on a Black man, a man that has worked for her family since she was a tiny child.

She can afford two attorneys, as we later learn. It isn’t about the money. It’s about blame. It’s about cold, hard vengeance.

We follow Roscoe as he makes his way through the trial, bewildered not to find Marie in the courtroom. We follow him through his years in prison, a system that tells the public it is there to correct bad habits and teach men skills they can use for the future. It’s a cruel, cold lie. And so although Roscoe’s experience is better in some ways than that of Wilson, who is sent to the end of the prison reserved for men of color, his sentence is much longer, with parole denied again and again as Marie fails to advocate for him.

Reeves is a genius with prose. Were I to rate this book solely on her skill as a writer, this would be a five star review, hands down. The kind of lyrical quality shown here is not a thing that can be taught; at some point, the word smithery put to use here is a matter of talent, and Reeves possesses enough for all Alabama.

My sole concern here is credibility. I don’t want to give too much away because you should read this novel, but I have to say that the way the last portion of the book plays out could never, never occur in the Jim Crow heart of Dixie. One could almost imagine some of it occurring in a different way, one closely guarded and unseen by the community, but to have things set up as they are when Roscoe finally gets out of prison and have the local storekeeper be aware of it, regard it as either normal or as private business that is no concern of his, strains credulity beyond the most magical prose. That house and farm would have been burned to the ground. It could never have happened.

Reeves has developed Roscoe’s character with depth and intimacy, and this is the greatest strength of her story; the first 75% of the plot is also well paced, with tension gently building as a story arc is meant to do. But the spell is broken during the last portion by the problem mentioned above.

Reeves is an author likely to go forward and do great things, and this is a strong debut. Apart from the one distraction mentioned, this book is highly recommended to those that love good fiction.

The Nazi Hunters, by Andrew Nagorski*****

Posted on February 17, 2016 by seattlebookmama

thenazihunters I had promised myself not to read any more Holocaust memoirs. What is to be gained? But when I saw this title available as a review copy on Net Galley, I thought that there is actually something to cheer the spirit in recounting how some of these monsters were tracked down and brought to justice. To date this is the most comprehensive telling of that achievement that I have read. Thanks go to Simon and Schuster and also to Net Galley for the DRC. This book is available for purchase May 17.

Were it not for the efforts of Jewish survivors and the state of Israel, very few of the top-ranking Nazi officers would ever have gone to trial. Following World War II, Allied forces divided small, relatively helpless nations of Europe like a pack of robbers piecing out the spoils after a bank job. Once that was done, there was little energy or funding put into hunting down Nazis. To be sure, there was no logistical way to try and punish everyone in Germany or its neighboring states that had belonged to the Nazi party or its offshoots. There were millions. Some of them joined because it was easier to join than to not join; some did it for job security; and a surprising number did it because they loved Hitler and the Third Reich. No matter how terribly they have behaved, you can’t jail millions of people that did the wrong thing, even when their participation and complicity have resulted in the deaths of innocent millions. And so an agreement was reached that just the top guys would be hunted down and tried in an international court.

By the time the war ended, however, the USA had begun the Cold War with Russia and its satellite states, incorporated at the time as the USSR. Congress was much more interested in funding ways to combat Stalin’s version of Communism than it was in locating war criminals. And this is where Israel became such an important player.

There are passages within this meaty tome that necessarily detail the kinds of horrors visited by one or another Nazi officer in order to illustrate the level of evil the individual in question represented. It is not good bedtime material. But there is far more of the courage, cleverness, and above all teamwork involved in finding these people, documenting their crimes, and bringing them to justice, and that’s what I wanted to see.

Philosophical questions that were examined when I was a kid in school are raised once more. At what point can a person no longer defend himself by saying he was just following orders? At what point does trying to follow the law of the land—even Fascist law—no longer let a person off the hook? Many of those that stood trial were people that had initiated one or another terrible innovation in the torture or murder of other human beings. Others went to trial for their monstrous brutality. Concentration camp survivors bore witness against them. I loved reading about those that had been stripped of everything, horribly tortured and humiliated right down to the nubs of their souls in a position of some power against their oppressors. It felt right.

Addressed here also is the tremendously controversial kidnapping of the butcher Adolph Eichmann. Eichmann lived in a Latin American nation that did not extradite war criminals; Israeli forces ferreted him out, forced him onto an airplane and took him to stand trial in Israel. Those that objected to this illegal behavior ultimately had little recourse. I felt like it was one of those times when a rule is rightfully broken. (See Six Million Accusers: Catching Adolph Eichmann, also reviewed on this blog.)

For researchers and students of history, as well as those with a strong interest in this area, this book is highly recommended.

Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume I, by Mark Twain*****

Posted on February 17, 2016 by seattlebookmama

automarktwainone Initially I was surprised not to have seen the autobiography of such a famous individual before. Twain, I learned at the outset, composed his memoir with the stipulation that it not be published until 100 years following his death, because he wanted to be entirely frank about some situations and persons without incurring the displeasure of them, their children, or their grandchildren. Twain died in 1910, and his memoir had been finished just four months. For those of us living now, it was worth the wait. Although I was fortunate enough to snare the DRC for volume 3, I had to go out and hunt down volumes 1 and 2. It’s well worth obtaining and reading for those with the attention span and literacy skills it requires.

There is a lot of material here, and you may be tempted to sample bits here and there using the table of contents. I strongly advise against it. Some of Twain’s most brilliant writing regards things you would not expect to care about. The dispute with a landlord in Italy as his wife lay dying in the villa has the full intensity, concentration, and fire he has to offer. Although I will never know for sure, I suspect that Twain was one of those rare individuals who became even more savagely articulate when angry. The heat of his rage is tremendous and oh so eloquent.

A lot of this writing is gut-bustingly funny, but some of it is also really subtle, and if you rush, you may miss it. I enjoyed reading what he thought of Jay Gould and John Rockefeller; of President Theodore Roosevelt; and of Satan, for whom he confesses that he feels a tremendous sympathy. In other passages he becomes poignant, particularly in speaking of the deaths of his wife and daughter. Nobody but Twain could say it just like this.

Should the reader ignore my advice and choose to jump around, thus missing occasional references to things mentioned earlier in the text, at least do this: be sure to read his remarks about dueling.

The memoir is not linear. He tried several times to sit down and write his life end-to-end, and destroyed some drafts; others he merely abandoned, and they made the assembly of the autobiography, most of which he dictated, all the more complicated as a result. The University of California has done a splendid job of isolating the random repetitious bits at the back of the book in an appendix, while putting the rest of it together in a way that while not linear, makes sense. There are a few interesting photos at the end as well.

Those engaged in the teaching of college level creative writing, of simile, metaphor and other figurative language may indeed want to read this magnificent memoir and pluck some favorite passages for use as examples.

Twain’s life story is not for those with limited focus or who need immediate gratification with minimal effort. This volume, all 738 pages apart from the appendix, kept me company at bedtime when everyone else in our home had the lights turned out and I was the only one still awake. In those small quiet hours I studied the prose of the master, and occasionally had to leave the bedroom in order to laugh out loud, lest I wake my spouse. I would be sorry to have finished, but volumes 2 and 3 still await my attention.

For those that love the English language, and for those with an eye for history, this memoir is not to be missed!

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, by Helen Simonson*****

Posted on February 6, 2016 by seattlebookmama

majorpettigrew Had this story not received such wide acclaim and been made into a movie (which I’ve yet to see, but I watched the Oscars), I would probably never have gone near it. I like working class protagonists, and I don’t read many romances, because often as not, they are corny, soft porn, or both. But I saw it at the library and decided to give it a try, and I quickly remembered, upon reading it, that some rules are made to be broken. So even if you usually don’t read romances, and even if a retired British pensioner is not your idea of an interesting protagonist, this should be the exception to the rule.

I loved this story!

Major Pettigrew has difficulty with some sorts of change. He doesn’t want to see his village built up and the green spaces developed. He has lost his wife and his brother, and loss of any type is very difficult. His solitude is not splendid; he is a lonely, lonely man.

And in some ways, he seems to have lost his son, who has become arrogant, dismissive, and wants nothing more from him than his wallet and his bank card.

On the other hand, he has found something really precious, but what he has found is so controversial that the whole wide world seems to be against him.

Perhaps the hook for me was the interracial marriage, since mine is one also. But on the other hand, maybe the hook is just excellent writing. A really great writer can make us enjoy a genre we didn’t think we cared for; I believe this is one of those.

I hit a certain point in this story and could not go to bed until it was done. I usually read lying down before I go to sleep, but I was literally sitting upright on the edge of my bed leaning forward when this climax broke.

You have to read this story. It’s glorious, and it’s available to the public. Highly recommended!

House of the Rising Sun, by James Lee Burke*-**

Posted on January 31, 2016 by seattlebookmama

houseoftherisingsun I confess that I am a big fan of Burke’s. He’s written a prodigious number of novels over the past fifty years, and I have read almost all of them. This is why, although I get nearly all of my books free prior to publication, I put this title on my Christmas wish list when I wasn’t given access to a galley. Perhaps because my spouse paid full jacket price for it, I am holding it to a higher standard than I usually do. This book is either a three star or four star read, depending on whether we factor in the dollars. Let’s call it 3.5 and round it up. It seems like a shame to 3-star a writer who is so talented and has contributed so much to American literature.

Most of Burke’s novels are detective fiction, crime fiction, mystery, or all three; now and then he writes historical fiction instead. And his choice to send Dave and Clete, the protagonist and side kick of the Robicheaux series, is a good one. No matter how much I enjoyed it, in that fictional world where cops do the right thing and bad guys are really bad every time, there is no way the reading public would be able to continue to enjoy their vigilante behaviors between the covers of a book at the same time that the Black Lives Matter movement has made us aware of that problem—along with the throw-down weapons used to justify gratuitous brutality after the fact–that exist in real life. So, that series is over, and I’m okay with it.

Technically, House of the Rising Sun is a four to five star novel. Burke’s use of imagery is rivaled by few and exceeded by none. Here, his use of allegory, creating a personal Odyssey based on one of the author’s own ancestors, is unquestionably strong. If you love literary fiction for its own sake, this is your book.

By far the strongest writing lies in the portions are set on the battlefields of Europe. Burke’s prose is eloquent and stirring in narrative passages that speak to the class nature of imperialist warfare.

For me, the issue has to do with plot and pacing. The entire book is essentially built around Hackberry Holland’s effort to find his son. They are separated when his wife leaves him and Ishmael is still a child, and through World War I and the period that follows, the journey to find Ishmael winds its way in a way that serves the allegory, but that feels tedious to me as a reader. A fight here; a fall off the wagon and drunk in the streets; looking here, there, everywhere; writing letters; making phone calls; it seems for a long time as if he has barely missed his son. Throw into it the villains—Maggie, Beatrice, and above all, Arnold Beckman—and that’s pretty much it. I don’t want to give anything away, but there isn’t that much suspense to begin with.

A lot of the dialogue seems as if it has been recycled from Burke’s previous books; not whole paragraphs, just speech patterns with a fragment here, a fragment there that left me thinking I had read it before this.

Anytime I find a jarring racist term in a novel, I point it out so that prospective readers will know it’s coming. The “N” word gets used several times; it is within the context of establishing or emphasizing someone’s malign nature. There are also other areas in which Holland takes Caucasian characters to task for racist behavior. Still, I like to think a writer of Burke’s stature can and should develop a credible villain without resorting to this hurtful, and to my thinking, cheap and easy method.

Whether this novel is for you probably depends most on what you look for in a novel. Lush descriptions and horrifically real violence abound, but there isn’t the kind of suspense you’d expect a missing-kid story to employ.

When push comes to shove, I recommend you read this, if you are still interested after reading the reviews, but get it once it goes to paperback, or wait for it to be available used; don’t pay full cover price for it unless your pockets are deep and your interest strong.

Chasing the North Star, by Robert Morgan****

Posted on January 21, 2016 by seattlebookmama

Chasing the North Star is a compelling narrative of two teenagers escaped from slavery on their flight toward the North. Thank you to Net Galley and Algonquin Books for the DRC, which I received in exchange for an honest review. This book becomes available to the public April 5, 2016.

Morgan begins with the story of Jonah, a man who leaves the horrific plantation on which he has been kept. His story is told in the third person omniscient, and so there is virtually no dialogue for a long time. I waited to see how well it would hold up; it isn’t easy to keep a reader’s attention for long passages in which everything is told within a narrative, and even more so when it is told in the third person, as opposed to first person, where the character himself tells us the story. And because the narrative combined strong character development, near-tangible setting, and a series of brilliant moves to elude pursuers, I found that my attention was held quite well.

The book is in fact both accessible and a surprisingly quick read.

Part of the way into the story, Angel, our second protagonist, joins Jonah, and she tells us her own story through the first person. I found this device—of switching from third person for Jonah’s story to first person when telling Angel’s—both unusual and congenial. We watch him and cheer for him, but then she talks to us and just lays it all out. And Angel is nobody’s helpless damsel. She tells us up front that it’s a good thing for Jonah that she loves him, because he is going to need her to save his butt, and she does so more than once.

The sparseness of the dialogue makes sense when one thinks about it. Two escaped slaves that do nothing but talk, talk, talk all the way north are going to be caught in a hot minute. The writer takes an intelligent risk in using so much narrative and so little dialogue, and it pays off.

Stories involving slavery are often really painful for African-American readers to mow through, because they recall a time that was so demeaning, not only a physical horror but one that assaulted their dignity. The “N” word appears here, but is used sparingly considering the time in which it is set, and the topic. I appreciated the autonomy with which Jonah and Angel operate. Too many stories of freedom from bondage feature white saviors more prominently than are appropriate.

In fact, my sole criticism of this story is that it does not portray the extent to which the Underground Railroad was run by free Black men and women in the north; but then, this isn’t a story of organized escape, but an independent one, and it is possible that the region in which our characters travel was different in that respect.

Those that love good historical fiction should read this book. Morgan has done a fine job with a difficult topic, and the story is one of triumph and glory.

Hitler is Alive!: Guaranteed True Stories Reported by the National Police Gazette, edited by Steven A. Westlake**

Posted on January 18, 2016 by seattlebookmama

Hitlerisalive I was invited to read and review this compendium of articles from long ago by my friends at Open Road Integrated Media and Net Galley. I appreciate the invitation. The articles in the collection were really published in a tabloid by the title above during the period after World War II ended, and they are presented here as a bit of humorous nostalgia, rather like the spirit of Punch or The Onion. These articles will tickle the funny-bone of some of its readers, but it wasn’t a good match for me.

It appears that Hitler did indeed have a man-made island set up as a place of retreat; most likely, word of the USA’s nuclear weapons program had filtered through and so an alternate location was devised for him and those he needed with him. In the end, his defeat was so clear and so absolute that even he could see there was no point in going there. However, between the Allied leaders’ claims that he was dead before anyone really knew what had happened and a few other intriguing details, journalists had a great deal of fodder to chew on for the period that followed. The overall tone at times nears hysteria, and because of this, it seems comical now.

Because it was not written initially to be humorous but instead was regarded by its writer as hard journalism, there is a lot redundancy, with old facts being repeated and new ones added in. I suspect that a much more amusing novella could be written using these articles as their basis; on the other hand, Hitler has been the subject of so much other historical fiction that it would have to be unique indeed to stand out from the crowd.

Those considering purchasing this collection might do well to go to a retail site that offers a chance to read sample pages first. If it works for you, go ahead and make the purchase. I have to confess I made it about halfway through and then bailed.

This collection was published Jan 12 of this year and is available for purchase now.

The Longest Night: A Novel, by Andria Williams*-**

Posted on January 12, 2016 by seattlebookmama

This one’s been a long time coming, and today it has been released to the public, so I’m reblogging it. Enjoy!

Seattle Book Mama

In her debut novel, Andria Williams gives a fictionalized account of a meltdown that occurred (in real life also) in Idaho Falls, Idaho. The narrative is intimate, the characters palpable; all told, this was a strong read. Many thanks go to Random House and Net Galley for this galley, which I was given free of charge in exchange for an honest review; I rate this novel 3.5 and round it up. The book becomes available for purchase January 12, 2016. You’ll see this post again sometime nearer publication.

Those of us that lived through the 1960’s will recognize how authentically Williams renders even the smallest details in setting, both the physical and social, of the Unites States during that time period. Home, clothing, and point of view are rendered expertly. This writer personally loved the depiction of a blend of meat, starch, and dairy with some canned fruit tossed in…

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The Two-Family House, by Linda Cohen Loigman*****

Posted on January 5, 2016 by seattlebookmama

TheTwoFamilyHouse What an amazing book! Once I began reading Loigman’s masterful historical fiction, my other galleys waited, meek and neglected until I was done with this one. Thank you twice, first to Net Galley and second to St. Martin’s Press for giving me a DRC in exchange for this honest review.

I have seldom seen such brilliant character development in a novel. Although Loigman is proficient with setting, it’s really the characters that drive this book. It begins just after World War II. Mort and Rose live downstairs with their three daughters; Abe, Mort’s brother, lives upstairs with his wife Helen and their sons. Though Rose and Helen are not biologically related, they are emotionally closer than many sisters. And what a great thing it is when they both find themselves pregnant, just when they believed they were finished having babies! Mort has wanted a son forever, and his resentment has begun to damage his marriage. He isn’t abusive, but he is cold toward Rose. When she says another baby is on the way, he becomes almost sentimental, making a deal with the cosmos that if he treats his wife well enough, she will bear him a little boy.

Helen loves her sons of course, but she sure would like a daughter; just one. Please.

And then during a blizzard, both women go into labor. Nobody can get to a hospital, and no doctor can reach their home. Instead, a midwife makes her way into the bedroom where both of them labor. Two babies are born.

This story grabbed me by the front of my shirt and wouldn’t let me go. Where I ordinarily make remarks about pacing, setting, and characterization, my e-reader is instead full of indignant comments. First I have become annoyed with Rose, and jot down notes about the things she says and does as if I were gossiping; eventually my remarks are made to Rose herself, because all of these people are so real to me, and she is behaving so badly. The author’s development of her characters, primarily Rose, Mort, and Judith, is so subtle and so sly that at first I wonder if I am imagining the change; eventually I just want to grab Rose and yank her into the kitchen for a good talking-to.

Maybe you think I have said too much, but there is oh so much more. I never saw the ending coming until we were there, and it was so cleverly done. When the story was over, I felt bereaved in a way I had not felt since I read The Goldfinch.

Those that love excellent historical fiction, strong literary fiction, good family stories or all three have to read this book. I gobbled it up early and had to sit on my hands for awhile prior to reviewing; a number of other books have passed between then and this writing, but The Two-Family House still stands out in my mind as having met excellence and surpassed it.

This book is available for purchase March 8. Highly recommended!