Source: Borrowed from library
Rating: ★★★★☆

I recently devoured a trilogy of young adult graphic novels written by Carla Jablonski and illustrated by Leland Purvis set in Nazi-occupied France during World War II.

The trilogy opens with Resistance, which is set in a small French village in 1942 in what once was the free zone but is no longer.  The books are mainly about the Tessier children: Paul, an artist whose drawings capture everything he sees and take on a great importance; Marie, who is curious and meddling like a typical younger sister; and Sylvie, his older sister, who seems flighty and boy-crazy but has a depth no one expects.

Their father is a prisoner of war, but the family is faring well, all things considered.  But when the Germans start taking away the local Jews, including the parents of Paul’s best friend, Henri, the siblings realize it is time to take a stand.  Helped by a worker in the family vineyard, Jacques, the Tessiers join the Resistance in an effort to keep Henri safe.

Source: Borrowed from library
Rating: ★★★★☆

In the second book, Defiance, Paul continues his work with the Resistance and papers the village with drawings that mock the Germans and the Milice (French military police).  He becomes infuriated as the Germans steal from his family and send French men to work in German factories, and his aunt cavorts with the Germans in exchange for food and other comforts.

His sisters also must do some soul searching, with Marie questioning the propaganda fed to her at school and Sylvie asked to cozy up to a German soldier to obtain information.  It becomes harder and harder for them to know who to trust and to keep their work a secret.

Source: Borrowed from library
Rating: ★★★★☆

In the final book, Victory, set after the D-Day invasion in 1944, Paul’s drawings finally land him in hot water with the Milice, but he finds resisters in the most shocking places.  Sylvie’s feelings for a German soldier grow complicated, Paul must deal with the impact of his resistance work on innocent civilians, and Marie shows her mettle when she cares for a wounded soldier carrying an important message from General de Gaulle.  Paul takes on his most dangerous mission yet, just as Paris is on the brink of liberation.

I tried to savor these books, but I ended up flying through them in a couple of hours.  The story worked well in the graphic novel format, though of course, things were simplified a bit as a result.  Still, there was much to like about these books, especially how they were presented for younger readers.  Each book begins and ends with an author’s note explaining what things were like for the French people under the occupation.

Jablonski puts the spotlight on the important contributions of children to the Resistance and how they were recruited because they were not as likely to be noticed or suspected.  She emphasizes their bravery, as well as their impulsiveness and the difficulty they had in keeping secrets.  What struck me the most as I read was how these children and teens had a burning desire to fight against the injustices they witnessed and experienced in their homes and villages, and they weren’t expected to act, but they did.

The books also touch on the tensions among neighbors, friends, and even family.  Those resisting feared being caught, and those who collaborated in some cases did so not because they supported the Nazis but because they wanted to survive the war.  Both sides did what they felt they had to do.  Many people claimed after the war to have been part of the Resistance, that they worked against the Germans even while appearing to help them.  And in some cases, people falsely accused their neighbors of collaborating.

The war and its aftermath were confusing for the French who lived so many years in fear, but Jablonski highlights the many who rose above their fear to fight for their freedom while also showing the infighting among the Resistance groups.  The illustrations by Purvis are rich and expressive, bringing the characters, the setting, and the tensions to life.  I highly recommend the Resistance trilogy to adults and middle-grade readers alike, as it perfectly captures an important and chaotic period in history and, even in the graphic novel format, conveys the complexities of the characters and their situations.

Books 19, 20, and 21 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

Disclosure: I borrowed Resistance, Defiance, and Victory from my local library.

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

Here’s what I received:

City of Women by David R. Gillham — purchased

It is 1943 — the height of the Second World War.  With the men away at the front, Berlin has become a city of women.

On the surface, Sigrid Schröder is the model German soldier’s wife: She goes to work every day, does as much with her rations as she can, and dutifully cares for her meddling mother-in-law, all the while ignoring the horrific immoralities of the regime.  But behind this façade is an entirely different Sigrid, a woman of passion who dreams of her former Jewish lover, now lost in the chaos of the war.

But Sigrid is not the only one with secrets — she soon finds herself caught between what is right and what is wrong, and what falls somewhere in the shadows between the two…  (publisher’s summary)

City of Hope by Kate Kerrigan — from William Morrow for review

It is the 1930s and when her beloved husband, John, suddenly dies, young Ellie Hogan decides to leave Ireland and return to New York.  She hopes that the city’s vibrancy will distract her from her grief.  But the Depression has rendered the city unrecognizable — gone is the energy and atmosphere of fun that Ellie fell in love with ten years before.

Plunging headfirst into a new life, Ellie pours all her passion and energy into running a home and refuge for the homeless.  In return they give her the kind of love, support, and friendship she needs to try and overcome her grief.  Until, one day, someone she thought she’d never see again steps through her door.  It seems that even the Atlantic isn’t big enough to prevent the tragedies of the past from catching up with her.  (publisher’s summary)

Rising Sun, Falling Shadow by Daniel Kalla — from Saima Agency/Forge for review

It’s 1943, and the Japanese war machine has swallowed up Shanghai, upending life for its Chinese population and snaring thousands of American, British, and officially stateless European residents.  Newlyweds Dr. Franz Adler and his wife, Soon Yi (Sunny), struggle to keep the city’s only hospital for refugee Jews open, while Shanghai’s Allied citizens are interned in squalid camps outside the city.

Bowing to Nazi pressure, the Japanese force twenty thousand Jewish refugees, including the Adlers, to relocate to a one-square-kilometer section in the slums of the city — the “Shanghai Ghetto.”  For those trapped inside, heat, starvation, and disease are constant threats.  Sunny, a Shanghai native desperate to defend her lifelong home, is tempted into the dangerous embrace of the local Resistance movement, while a mysterious Chinese man brought critically wounded to the hospital may represent an even greater threat.  Meanwhile, as the tide of the war begins turning in the rest of the world, the local Nazis maintain a persistent, menacing interest in Shanghai’s Jewish population.

Rising Sun, Falling Shadow blends a lush portrait of a city under siege with medical drama, romance, and the intrigue of Alan Furst’s Mission to Paris, showing us both the heroism and the treachery that can result when ordinary people find themselves faced with extraordinary dangers.  (publisher’s summary)

What books did you add to your shelves recently?

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

Source: Borrowed from library
Rating: ★★★★★

What Matters in Jane Austen? Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved answers 20 questions relating to the novels of Jane Austen.  John Mullan, an English professor at University College London, explores such topics as the importance of age in Austen’s novels, whether she wrote about sex, why blunders play a major role in her plots, what makes her characters blush, and what are the right and wrong ways to propose marriage.

Mullan answers these questions in great detail, providing plenty of examples from each of Austen’s six novels (Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, and Sense and Sensibility) and even two she didn’t finish (Sanditon and The Watsons).  He also touches on the works of other authors from the period, Regency social mores, and Austen’s life to put her work into context.  I certainly noticed many of these things when I read the novels, but clearly I have only scratched the surface of Austen’s work!

I learned many things from What Matters in Jane Austen?, including:

• Mary Musgrove, Anne Elliot’s sister in Persuasion, is the only wife in Austen’s novels to call her husband by his first name.  The subsequent discussion of the meaning behind what characters call each other was fascinating and informative.
• Jane Austen didn’t describe what her heroines looked like, though some characters are described through the eyes of other characters.  In Emma, Mrs. Weston says Emma has “the true hazle eye,” “pretty height and size,” and a “firm and upright figure,” but Austen merely describes her as “handsome” in the novel’s first sentence.
• Austen was the first novelist to describe small changes in the weather.  The weather showed the novels’ chronology and even shaped events, like in Persuasion, when the rain forces Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth to seek shelter in a shop, and he must watch Anne whisked away by his competition, Mr. Elliot.
• There are several important characters in her novels who do not actually speak a word of dialogue, such as Mr. Perry, the apothecary in Emma, and Georgiana Darcy, Mr. Darcy’s sister in Pride and Prejudice.
• Austen sometimes spoke directly to the reader, even going as far as calling Fanny Price “My Fanny” in Mansfield Park.  She is the only heroine Austen refers to in such a familiar and affectionate way.

I loved taking a closer look at Austen’s novels, and I am continually amazed by how many layers there are to her characters, plots, and writing style.  I know that when I re-read her books, I will do so more slowly and with my eyes wide open.  What Matters in Jane Austen? is the perfect book for Austen fans who want even more reasons to appreciate her brilliance, as well as those who think Austen’s novels lack depth.

Disclosure: I borrowed What Matters in Jane Austen? from my local library.

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

Source: Borrowed from library
Rating: ★★★★☆

And perhaps,when Vincent arrived that summer, he noticed that nascent stirring about me.  He saw that I was bursting to come to life again.  Twenty-one years of age, and for the first time since I was a young child, I wanted to dance in the garden and sing.

(from The Last Van Gogh, page 72)

The Last Van Gogh chronicles the last 70 days in the life of Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, set in the French village of Auvers-sur-Oise during the summer of 1890.  It was my book club’s May pick.  (I wasn’t able to attend last month’s meeting, so I can’t include everyone’s thoughts this time around.)  I was especially excited about this book because Alyson Richman’s novel The Lost Wife made my “Best of 2011″ list.  Richman tells this story through the eyes of Marguerite Gachet, the 21-year-old daughter of the homeopathic doctor treating 37-year-old Vincent for depression and anxiety.  Marguerite was the subject of two portraits painted in the days before his suicide.

Just like her late mother, Marguerite feels trapped.  She’s basically a maid to her father and younger brother, Paul, and has little contact with the world outside their home, except to go shopping or attend Mass.  When Dr. Gachet isn’t creating his questionable tinctures and treating his own melancholy, he fancies himself a painter and an art collector and drops the names of his artist friends Cézanne and Pissarro as often as he can.  He doesn’t approve when Vincent voices a desire to paint Marguerite — and neither does Paul, whose failed attempts to secure attention and praise from Vincent strain his relationship with his sister.

The attraction between Marguerite and Vincent is intense and makes Marguerite feel alive for the first time.  Though her father is not likely to approve, Louise-Josephine (the illegitimate daughter of Marguerite and Paul’s “governess” who has been hidden away in the Gachet home since she was 14) gives her reason to hope.  However, Louise-Josephine’s chances of a happily-ever-after are as impossible as her own.

The Last Van Gogh develops slowly, giving readers a good understanding of the Gachet family’s dynamics and the obstacles in the way of Marguerite’s happiness.  Readers know from the beginning that this will be a tragic love story, but that didn’t stop me from hoping for a different ending for Vincent.  Once Vincent decides he needs to paint Marguerite, the pace of the narrative picks up, as Vincent’s poor financial and mental condition and the jealousy and possessiveness pervading the Gachet home conspire against them.

The novel shines in Richman’s descriptions of Vincent’s paintings, from the vivid colors to the symbolism, from his frenzied brush strokes to his burning need to paint whatever inspired him.  She does a wonderful job portraying him as a troubled genius, and one can understand why Marguerite would be drawn to him.  I really felt for Marguerite; she was so isolated, stifled, lonely, and desperately in need of freedom.

The Last Van Gogh is a lovely historical novel about art and inspiration, love and freedom, and loyalty and obligation.  I enjoyed reading about Richman’s inspiration for the book in the author’s note, and I couldn’t help but do some research of my own, searching for information about the Gachets and looking up the paintings Van Gogh painted in Auvers, particularly his portraits of Marguerite.  This is a novel that requires a bit of patience, but readers will be rewarded with rich descriptions of the artistic process and a heartfelt tale of first love.

Book 18 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

Disclosure: I borrowed The Last Van Gogh from my local library.

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

Here’s what I received:

The Satyr’s Curse by Alexandrea Weis — from the author for review

Gruesome murders are rocking New Orleans.

But Jazzmyn Livaudais is too busy running her restaurant to pay attention to the sensational headlines.  And when the charismatic Julian Devereau enters Jazzmyn’s life, she becomes even more distracted by the handsome stranger.

Seduced by Julian’s charm, Jazzmyn is swept up in a passionate romance.  Then she learns the horrific truth about Julian and the murders.  Cursed to an unending life where no woman can satisfy his lust and no wine can quench his thirst, Julian needs Jazzmyn’s love to free him from his torment.

But Jazzmyn is in love with someone else.  And Julian isn’t very happy about it.

He vows to keep on killing until Jazzmyn submits to his will.

For Jazzmyn Livaudais the nightmare is just beginning.

No one can ever break The Satyr’s Curse.  (publisher’s summary)

Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison — from a co-worker

Greenville County, South Carolina, a wild, lush place, is home to the Boatwright family — rough-hewn men who drink hard and shoot up each other’s trucks, and indomitable women who marry young and age all too quickly.  At the heart of this astonishing novel is Ruth Anne Boatwright, known simply as Bone, a South Carolina bastard with an annotated birth certificate to tell the tale.  Observing everything with the mercilessly keen eyes of a child, Bone finds herself caught in a family triangle that will test the loyalty of her mother, Anney.  Her stepfather, Daddy Glen, calls Bone “cold as death, mean as a snake, and twice as twisty,” yet Anney needs Glen.  At first gentle with Bone, Daddy Glen becomes steadily colder and more furious — until their final, harrowing encounter, from which there can be no turning back.  (publisher’s summary)

A Midsummer Night’s Scream by R.L. Stine — from Feiwel and Friends for review (which I’m giving to The Girl to read)

Get ready for laughter to turn to screams in R.L. Stine’s reimagining of Shakespeare’s classic romantic comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Everyone knows that Mayhem Manor is cursed.  After production on the horror film was stopped due to a series of mysterious deaths, it became a Hollywood legend — which makes it perfect for Claire and her family.  If they can successfully finish the film, it should be enough to save their ailing movie studio.

Sure, the old haunted house is creepy, and strange stuff has been happening, but this is Claire’s chance.  Her chance to become the movie star she’s always dreamed of and her chance to finally convince her friend Jake that she is girlfriend material.  Of course, the fact that Jake thinks he’s in love with her best friend, Delia, who is crushing hard on Jake’s friend Shawn, who insists on following Claire around, could be a problem, but Claire is sure she can figure it out.  After all, the course of true love never did run smooth.

But once shooting starts, “creepy and strange” morph into “bloody and deadly,” as the lines between film and reality begin to blur…  (publisher’s summary)

Teardrop by Lauren Kate — from Delacorte Press for review (which I’m giving The Girl to read)

Never, ever cry…

Eureka Boudreaux’s mother drilled that rule into her daughter years ago.  But now her mother is gone, and everywhere Eureka goes in New Iberia, Louisiana, he is there:  Ander, the tall, pale blond boy who seems to know things he shouldn’t, who tells Eureka she is in grave danger, who comes closer to making her cry than anyone has before.

But Ander doesn’t know Eureka’s darkest secret:  ever since her mother drowned in a freak accident, Eureka wishes she were dead, too.  She has little left that she cares about, just her oldest friend, Brooks, and a strange inheritance from her mother — a locket, a letter, a mysterious stone, and an ancient book no one can understand.  The book contains a haunting tale about a girl who got her heart broken and cried an entire continent into the sea — and something about the story is uncannily familiar.

Eureka is about to discover that the ancient tale is more than a story, that Ander might be telling the truth…and that her life has far darker undercurrents than she ever imagined.

From Lauren Kate, author of the FALLEN series, comes an epic saga of heart-stopping romance, devastating secrets, and dark magic…a world where everything you love can be washed away…  (publisher’s summary)

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson — from Delacorte Press for review (which I’m giving to The Girl to read)

Ten years ago calamity came.  It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary people extraordinary powers.  The awed public started calling them Epics.

Epics are no friends of man.  With incredible gifts came the desire to rule.  And to rule man, you must crush his will.

Now, in what was once Chicago, an astonishingly powerful Epic named Steelheart has installed himself as emperor.  Steelheart possesses the strength of ten men and can control the elements.  It is said that no bullet can harm him, no sword can split his skin, and no fire can burn him.  He is invincible.  Nobody fights back…nobody but the Reckoners.

A shadowy group of ordinary humans, the Reckoners spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.  And David wants in.

When Steelheart came to Chicago, he killed David’s father.  For years, like the Reckoners, David has been studying, and planning, and he has something they need.  Not an object, but an experience.

He has seen Steelheart bleed.

And he wants revenge.  (publisher’s summary)

The Eye of Minds by James Dashner — from Delacorte Press for review (which I’m giving The Girl to read)

Michael is a gamer.  And like most gamers, he almost spends more time on the VirtNet than in the actual world.  The VirtNet offers total mind and body immersion, and it’s addictive.  Thanks to technology, anyone with enough money can experience fantasy worlds, risk their life without the chance of death, or just hang around with Virt-friends.  And the more hacking skills you have, the more fun.  Why bother following the rules when most of them are dumb, anyway?

But some rules were made for a reason.  Some technology is too dangerous to fool with.  And recent reports claim that one gamer is going beyond what any gamer has done before:  he’s holding players hostage inside the VirtNet.  The effects are horrific — the hostages have all been declared brain-dead.  Yet the gamer’s motives are a mystery.

The government knows that to catch a hacker, you need a hacker.

And they’ve been watching Michael.  They want him on their team.

But the risk is enormous.  If he accepts their challenge, Michael will need to go off the VirtNet grid.  There are back alleys and corners in the system human eyes have never seen and predators he can’t even fathom — and there’s the possibility that the line between game and reality will be blurred forever.  (publisher’s summary)

What books did you add to your shelves recently?

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

Source: Review copy from author
Rating: ★★★★★

To stand here was to experience the magnitude of Mother Nature, to witness her artistry and ruthless power.  I closed my eyes and felt the winds of her sympathy move through my hair, and I listened to her tender mercies echo across craggy cliffs.

To stand here was to feel inadequate and grand and connected to something far beyond comprehension.  But most of all, to stand here was to feel forgiven.

(from Looking for Me, page 164)

Looking for Me is a beautiful novel (the best book I’ve read so far this year, in fact) about following your dreams, holding onto memories instead of things, and making peace with the past.  Teddi Overman left her family farm in Kentucky right after high school to live out her dream of restoring and selling antique furniture.  She knew this was her destiny from the age of 10, much to the disappointment of her mother, who had a more secure future in mind for her daughter.

Around 20 years later, Teddi still wishes her mother would visit her store in Charleston to see her accomplishments and maybe even begin to heal the hurts that have plagued their relationship for so long.  But Teddi ends up back in Kentucky, sifting through a lifetime of memories, secrets, and pain and must finally come to terms with the disappearance of her younger brother, Josh, who spent most of his time in the nearby national forest and had an unexplainable connection with animals and a fierce desire to protect them from poachers.

Her friends — the “firecracker” Olivia, a rare book expert; Inez, her feisty office manager; and Albert, the sweet but reserved furniture restorer — keep Teddi in the present, and an unexpected relationship makes her feel alive for the first time since Josh went missing.  However, she can’t bring herself to believe Josh could be dead or stop looking for him.

Looking for Me is one of those books you know you’re going to love from the very first page.  Beth Hoffman is such a talented storyteller, and I’ve loved her writing since I read Saving CeeCee Honeycutt (which made my Best of 2010 list).  Her characters are so well developed and so real, and her descriptions are so vivid and rich that you feel like you are walking alongside the characters.  The best way to describe Hoffman’s writing is warm and insightful, and this book just spoke to me.  I remember having to go through my grandmother’s apartment, getting lost in old memories, feeling suffocated by grief, and wondering what to keep and what to discard, so I knew what Teddi was going through to some extent.

I love how Hoffman can take you on an emotional roller coaster ride (I teared up reading this on the train and didn’t care if anyone noticed), and even when you feel wrung out and breathless like the characters, you can’t help but enjoy it and want more.  She writes about a family broken by a tragic event, and she does so with heart and even hope.  Looking for Me is such a rich novel, with delicious descriptions of antiques and a portrait of the power of nature, the unbreakable bond of close siblings, and the freedom that comes from accepting the past while looking forward to the future.  When I turned the last page, I knew this was a novel I wouldn’t soon forget and that from here on out, I will read anything Hoffman writes.

Disclosure: I received Looking for Me from the author for review.

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

Source: Review copy from Sourcebooks
Rating: ★★★★★

Até turned to him. To his silence. “Do you fear what we are to do here?”

“I fear what we may find. Friends who are now foes. All wars are civil wars in some way, Até. This one more than most. Eleven years we have been away. A world changes in eleven years.”

The Mohawk thumped his chest with a closed fist. “It does not change here.”

Jack studied the shoreline. “I think it changes there most of all.”

(from Jack Absolute)

Jack Absolute is the first book in a series set during the American Revolution that focuses on a British spy with conflicted loyalties.  Jack Absolute is a character in The Rivals, a play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and C.C. Humphreys was inspired to bring him to life after portraying him in a 1987 revival of the play, which was first performed in 1775.  (I love that the book features a photograph of Humphreys in costume!)

Jack Absolute arrives in London in 1777 after seven years abroad seeking to reclaim his family’s fortune to find that his friend, Sheridan, who believed Jack to be dead, has made him a laughingstock in a play that depicts a failed love affair from his past.  It doesn’t take long for Jack to get himself in trouble while at the theater.  After turning down General Burgoyne’s request to rejoin the British Army and sail with him across the sea to do some intelligence work and help put an end to the war, Jack’s dalliance with an actress leads to a duel and forces him to flee from the authorities — straight into Burgoyne’s carriage, leaving him no choice but to accept his old friend’s offer.  All of this happens in the first three chapters, and the excitement and adventure never let up.

The novel follows Jack as he attempts to track down a spy in the Redcoats’ midst, works with his Mohawk brother, Até, to drum up support for the British among the divided Iroquois tribes, romances the daughter of an American Loyalist, and seeks revenge on the sinister Count von Schlaben.  In rich detail, Humphreys paints a portrait of the American wilderness, the bloody battles at Saratoga, and the excesses of British-occupied Philadelphia.

Jack Absolute is an expertly paced novel that has so much to offer in terms of action, setting, and historical detail.  Jack’s duties keep him on the go, and he always manages to end up in impossible situations, which ensures the plot never slows down.  Humphreys does a brilliant job making the characters, both historical and fictional, come to life.  Jack Absolute is one of the most interesting and complex characters I’ve come across.  He is both brave and foolish, not to mention daring, charming, funny, honorable, and even haunted.  When it comes to the war, he is torn but loyal.  It’s easy to see why he’s a hit with the ladies, and he even surprised me at times, which is what I liked best of all.

Jack Absolute has a little something for everyone — war, sex, romance, intrigue, and even swordfighting.  It gives readers a glimpse of the various sides of the war, Redcoat, Rebel, and Native American, showing how confusing it was for men to fight against men they fought alongside to defeat the French not too long before and how the war put the Iroquois tribes at odds with one another.  It’s also a perfect series book, satisfying readers at the end while paving the way for a sequel.  I can’t wait to follow Jack on his next adventure!

Book 2 for the American Revolution Reading Challenge

Book 17 for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

Disclosure: I received Jack Absolute from Sourcebooks for review.

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

I can’t imagine not blogging, so I’ll continue for as long as I’m having fun — and I hope you all will continue to visit me from time to time.  I’m still writing my novel, so if I disappear once in awhile, it’s just because I’m busy.  I’d like to be more active on Twitter, etc., but I’ve yet to figure out how to carve out time for it, especially since I’d rather use my little bits of free time to read, write, blog, and visit your blogs.  I don’t know how some of you keep up with it all!

I just wanted to thank you all for sharing book recommendations with me, stopping by to read my reviews, and supporting me through good times and bad.  My fellow bookworms, you’ve made the last 6 years a lot of fun, and here’s to many more!

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

Here’s what I received:

The Mysterious Death of Miss Jane Austen by Lindsay Ashford — from Sourcebooks for review

Twenty-six years have passed since the death of Jane Austen, and Anne Sharp, former governess to the Austen family and Jane’s close friend, has decided at last to tell her story — a story of family intrigues, shocking secrets, forbidden loves, and maybe even murder…

Upon its publication in the UK, Lindsay Ashford’s fictional interpretation of the few facts surrounding Jane Austen’s mysterious death sparked an international debate and uproar.  None of the medical theories offers a satisfactory explanation for Jane Austen’s early demise at the age of forty-one.  Could it be that what everyone has assumed was death by natural causes was actually more sinister?  Lindsay Ashford’s vivid novel delves deep into Jane’s world and puts forth a shocking suggestion — was someone out to silence Jane?  (publisher’s summary)

The Revolution of Every Day by Cari Luna — from the author and Tin House Books for review

In the mid-nineties, New York’s Lower East Side contained a city within its shadows: a community of squatters who staked their claim on abandoned tenements and lived and worked according to their own rules, accountable to no one but each other.  With gritty prose and vivid descriptions, Cari Luna’s debut novel, The Revolution of Every Day, imagines the lives of five squatters from that time.  But even as city lawyers and private developers try to evict them, the rifts within their community prove to be the greater challenge.  Amelia, taken in by Gerrit as a teen runaway seven years earlier, is now pregnant by his best friend, Steve.  Anne, married to Steve, is questioning her commitment to the squatter lifestyle.  And Cat, a fading legend of the downtown scene and unwitting leader of one of the squats, succumbs to the bad habits of her youth.  The misunderstandings and secrets and the dissolution of the hope that originally bound these five threaten to destroy their homes as surely as the city’s battering rams.  (publisher’s summary)

What books did you add to your shelves recently?

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.

Source: Borrowed from library
Rating: ★★★★☆

Best Kept Secret is Volume Three of The Clifton Chronicles, Jeffrey Archer’s series about Harry Clifton and the Barrington family, set primarily in England.  The series began with Harry’s coming-of-age story in Only Time Will Tell and continued with his adventures during World War II in The Sins of the Father.  Because each book in the series picks up right where the last one left off, with little back story from the previous books, they really should be read in order.  But don’t fret; they are all fast-paced with well-developed, interesting characters, so it won’t take too long to catch up.

In Best Kept Secret, which spans the years 1945 to 1958, Harry is a well-known crime novelist and finally settling into a quiet life with his wife, Emma Barrington, and their young son, Sebastian.  Archer tells the story through the points of view of Harry, Emma, Sebastian, and Giles Barrington, Harry’s best friend and Emma’s brother.  Readers follow the Cliftons and the Barringtons as Harry goes on tour for his latest book, Emma begins the adoption process to give Sebastian a sibling, and Giles fights to keep his seat in Parliament.

Sebastian earns main character status when he plays a pivotal role in Giles’ re-election campaign, which occurs just as Giles’ nemesis and a scheming, money-hungry member of high society join forces to take down the Barrington family and the company they have run for generations.  Best Kept Secret ends up being Sebastian’s coming-of-age story, as he navigates the world of academics and the temptations of more experienced women and unknowingly steps into the world of organized crime.

Archer’s prose is straightforward with minimal description, and at times — at least in the first few chapters — it’s more telling than showing as he fast-forwards a bit in the characters’ lives.  After that, the book speeds ahead, introducing and resolving one plot line at a time and leaving me breathless by the end.  Archer really knows how to build tension and move the story forward.  I’ve enjoyed seeing Harry evolve over time, and I love how Emma is a strong woman not afraid to show her intelligence, take an interest in the family company, and further her education at a time when women weren’t accepted in the boardroom.  These are characters I enjoy spending time with, and I just don’t want the series to end.

Best Kept Secret is an exciting addition to the series that kept me on the edge of my seat throughout.  And even though I knew it was coming (based on the endings of the first two books), I was still shocked by the cliffhanger ending and upset that I’ll have to wait another year to find out what happens.  But if Archer wants me to be excited about the next book, it certainly worked!

(Best Kept Secret is also available as an audio book, and you can listen to the first chapter here.)

Disclosure: I borrowed Best Kept Secret from my local library.

© 2013 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.