Merlin's Harp - Anne Eliot Crompton

★★★★★★★★★★ (5/10)

I'm as big a fan of Arthurian legend as the next person. Tales of Arthur, Lancelot, Gwenevere (and the various spellings thereof), the Round Table (not the pizza), and chivalry almost make me wish for that long ago time when life was very different.  When I came across Merlin's Harp, I thought I'd find an interesting read about a well known legend.  There was a comparison on the back to The Mists of Avalon, a book which I really enjoyed, so I bought this novel hoping to be as enthralled.  Unfortunately, I was not. 

Although Merlin's Harp is very well written (two thumbs up for writing style), the plot is what took away stars in my rating.  It can be difficult to rewrite a legend, especially one like this that as so many variations and detailed elements.  I liked where Crompton was taking the novel, but the plot was too jumpy for me, and, as stated in previous posts, I don't do well with slow movers, and Merlin's Harp was pretty slow.  For instance, I was almost halfway through the novel before the story made it into Camelot.  I realize that Crompton deemed it important to explain how the Fey grow up and become who they are, but I can only read about Counsel Oak and the apple trees so many times something before I expect something interesting to happen.

I did enjoy the mysteries about the Fey.  According to Aefa, one of the main characters Niviene's friends, no Fey ever knows who his or her father is. Even Niviene knowing that she has a brother, and growing up with him is an unusual thing amongst the Fey.  Niviene herself does not know who her father is, and for most of the novel, she doesn't particularly care.  There is also the question as to who is Fey and who is Human.  Several times, Niviene questions whether some of the people she meets are completely Fey, completely Human, or some of both.  She is never sure about her own brother; she believes him Fey as a child, but when they are grown, and he becomes Lancelot (a twist I was excited about), Nivienve thinks that he must be half Human because of the emotions that he shows, but her mother dies before she ever has the thought to ask. There are other aspects about the Fey that I liked, but I'll leave them for you to read, if you'd like.

Scenes such as the ones with Morgan le Faye were really annoying.  I think it would have been easy enough to leave out part of the legend that did not affect Niviene or her life, but Crompton wouldn't do it.  I suppose that Compton needed a way to introduce Mordred, but this was just ridiculous.  Morgan was never mentioned before this scene, and she is mentioned in passing maybe once or twice afterward until Arthur's death scene.  She seems to just pop in and disappear for a while, which isn't how to original legend goes.  It would have been easier and more conducive to the plot if Morded had just showed up in Camelot with Merlin one day.  Instead, there is a battle that's not even a fight that takes maybe 10 pages, before Morgan is soundly defeated by a song, and the Merlin and company take Mordred.  They just leave Morgan behind: no magic to seal her away, no dire warning, nothing to keep her from taking revenge.  She just accepts it.  It's silly!

There are some nice things that Crompton adds to the legend of Arthur, but I think I'd rather watch the painful 1967 musical Camelot, than read the pieces of Merlin's Harp that I didn't like.  I think, however, that I can just skip those scenes and enjoy Niviene's perspective about what happened.  If you'd like a hilarious, non-musical, Arthurian tale, I would suggest the TV mini-series Merlin. It focuses more on Merlin's view of how Arthur rose and fell, but it's just as interesting as the legends that focus mostly on Arthur himself.

Pride/Prejudice - Ann Herendeen

★★★★★★★★★★ (7/10)

Whew! I think I need a fan or a breeze after reading this book.  Needless to say, Pride/Prejudice was not what I was expecting.  From the back cover description, I was thinking it would be more along the lines of a retelling from multiple points of view, picking up on things that Austen could only hint at.  I was completely wrong, and what I actually read was a complete surprise. 

So, think Austen's Pride and Prejudice if it had been written as a bisexual, erotic-but-courteous 19th century romance novel, and you get the general idea of what Pride/Prejudice is.  It's almost difficult to imagine Mr. Darcy as an immensely passionate lover until you finish reading this novel.  Everything that would have been improper for a female author to pen during Austen's lifetime, comes out here.  However, given the laws in England in that time, I don't think that most of this would ever have been written for publication then in the first place.

To start, Darcy and Bingley are lovers in every sense of the word.  Herendeen's reasoning for this comes from Bingley's dependence on Darcy's opinion in P&P. Austen makes it very clear that Bingley turns to Darcy for support/approval, so Herendeen takes this a step further by putting the two men into a pseudo-ancient-Greek mentor-youth relationship.  Darcy being older, has taken Bingley under his wing, but the two have also developed romantic feelings for each other. So, Bingley looks to Darcy out of respect as well as love, while Darcy looks out for Bingley for the same reasons. Yet, at the same time, they both fall in love with incredible women: Bingely with Jane, and Darcy with Elizabeth.

However, Darcy, being the arrogant brute we all love, is the jealous type, and Bingley's attachment to Jane fuels his jealousy, adding another reason to keep the young couple apart.  In addition to Austen's original qualms for Darcy to not approve of Bingley's choice, Herendeen adds jealousy and possessiveness.  It's really very cute to see the way Darcy and Bingley are together in private; they almost dote on one another like a newlywed couple.

Meanwhile, Darcy isn't the only one with a non-platonic friendship.  Herendeen's view is that Elizabeth and Charlotte Lucas's friendship stems from more than them being of like minds.  In this novel, the are also lovers.  Herendeen gives Elizabeth a little of Darcy's jealousy and possessiveness when Charlotte decides to marry Mr. Collins. Lizzy doesn't want to lose her friend or their field activities, so she is angry with Charlotte to the point of cruelty.  Not only is their relationship different, but Lizzy's relationship with Jane is different, too.  They are still as close as sisterly friends can be, but Jane is more animated and doesn't hesitate to disagree with Lizzy.  There are times when Jane actually becomes angry, which you never see in P&P.  Jane and Lizzy also face a kind of estrangement after they marry their respective suitors, which I won't spoil the surprise for.

Which leads me to another aspect about Pride/Prejudice that I really like. Herendeen puts imagination to better use by adding a lot about what might have happened after the weddings.  This novel doesn't stop when the two sisters wed, but goes on to the honeymoon and children, friendships and hardships.  It's nice to see what another person thinks went on after the original story cut off.

There is absolutely more to the story than all of this, but I don't want to give away the juicier details.  I think I'll leave off with this: if you take out most of the gratuitous sex scenes, it's a lovely novel that makes for an entertaining alternate P&P.

Stardust - Neil Gaiman

★★★★★★★★★★ (4/10)

I am uncommonly depressed. This is quite possibly the most disappointing book I have ever read.  I watched the film version of Stardust and was impressed by it; it was funny, well scripted, and I loved every minute of it.  That being said, I think that the screenwriters did a better job writing Stardust than Neil Gaiman did.  I heard so much about Neil Gaiman and what a fabulous writer he is.  I have no doubt that he is a talented writer, but Stardust is not an example of it.  If he were to go back and rewrite it, I would defintely try to read it again, and hope there were significant expansions.

I refuse to make comparisons with the film, so my post shouldn't be biased by horrible snips of "this didn't happen in the movie," or "I wish this part of the movie had been in the book."  I disliked the novel for its own merits, or lack thereof.

To being with, I felt that Stardust could have been twice as long, telling the same story.  I wanted it to be longer, with more detail, and more time spent on each of Tristran's adventures. (I hate that name, too.  There was no reason to add the extra "r." It just makes it harder to pronounce.)  I felt like I was seeing the images in fast forward, almost as though parts had been skipped.  I even checked to see if the novel I had in my hands was an abridged version (it wasn't).  The best way I can describe this feeling is that the story flitted. It flitted from one scene to the next without really fleshing out what was happening. The plot is intriguing, but the novel seems to be just a bare bones version of what Gaiman is capable of. 

Now on to character development.  This is one thing that makes me truly sad when I read novels.  All the characters seemed very flat: Tristran had one emotion, the star was bland, and even the witch just kind of simmered instead of boiled.  Tristran is an idiot, completely and totally, and he stays that way throughout the story.  At the end, there is a lot of blather about him having grown, being taller than his father, changed physically, but he's still really just an idiot.  The star was absolutely right in her first judgment of him.  The star was more like the lump of rock she is in the sky than a living character.  It's understandable that she is angry when she first meets Tristran, and I hoped that her sass and fire would continue, but it doesn't.  She becomes almost complacent, and docile, and boring. She's just kind of there as a necessity to move on with the plot.  She doesn't "shine."  And the witch.  You expect a witch to be cruel, ugly, and malevolent, just because that is the stigma that goes along with being a witch.  It seems logical, but this witch is simply determined.  Even then, her determination only goes so far.  I felt that she gave up too easily, and her acts of magic to get to the star weren't very witchy.  She turned a boy into a goat; big deal.  She turned a chariot into an inn; ooh, scary.  She killed a man; that's just run-of-the-mill witchery. Gaiman never really makes her truly evil, and that left something wanting in the villain department.

Another problem is that everything was a little too easy.  Tristran just happened to run into a hairy little man with a magic candle that got him to the star quickly.  The star and Tristran just happened to stumble across and save a unicorn who can carry the star.  These two end up on a cloud and just happen to be rescued withing minutes and treated like honored guests. Tristran just gives up Victoria without a second thought (given that he's in love with the star, but he didn't quite know that).  The witch just meekly accepts that she won't be able to get the star's heart, and goes home. Stardust is full of "just's" that come without any real effort.  The only thing that can really claim some trial on Tristran's part is that he burned his hand getting away from the witch in the mountains, but even that doesn't pain him for very long. 

I'm going to stop bad-mouthing this novel now for two reasons. 1) I don't want to talk about it anymore, and 2) I should at least try to say something nice about it so that someone else can read Stardust and disagree with me. 

Nice things.... I liked that Tristran had a perfect sense of direction in Faerie; it made it very convenient for traversing a new world. 

OK, I'm done now.  I just can't continue, and I would like to say that my reaction to Stardust  is the reason libraries exist, and I'm happy that I borrowed this instead of buying it.  I'm sorry to anyone who like Stardust, but I just didn't, and I don't think I'll be changing my opinion.  This, in no way has prejudiced me against Mr. Gaiman, and I look forward to reading another of his works in the future.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms - N.K. Jemisin

★★★★★★★★★★ (8/10)

To start off: a big thank you to Yulia and Samin for giving me this as a birthday gift!  Who doesn't love a book as a present?

Now on to the real business.  The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is quite amazing.  For a first novel, it was really detailed, interesting, and absorbing.  It took me a couple chapters to figure out what was going on, who was who, and why things were happening, but after that, I sailed through it and was very satisfied with the ending (which is unusual for me with fantasy/sci-fi novels). If nothing else, Jemisin is an expert at unexpected twists, and each one left me thinking that this woman is a genius with a plot and making me have to catch my breath because I didn't believe what was happening.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is centered around Yeine, a girl around twenty years old (not quite twenty) who is the leader of her matriarchal people, the Darren. Her mother has just died, and she's been summoned to the capital (of the country, union, continent?), Sky, by her grandfather, where she is to learn that she has been named and heir to the "throne."  I have to put that in quotes because Yeine's grandfather is not a king; he's just in charge, and the ruling family, the Arameri, are not considered royalty. They're just very, very powerful.  Yeine hopes that by going to Sky, she can help her people, and find out who was behind her mother's death.

Once Yeine understands that she is never to return to her home, Darr, she finds herself in a cruel battle for power against the other two heirs: her cousins Relad and Scimina.  There two are not people I would want to rule a nation (or whatever the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is).  Scimina is cruel, heartless, and deathly ambitious.  Relad is a drunk, not nearly as cruel, but his selfishness makes up for that.  They both care more about power than anything else, and considering that the winning heir must kill the person closest to them to gain power, that's something that works for them.  Contrarily, Yeine is rational, brutally honest, and compassionate.  She is by no means weak, but she cannot comprehend the terrible things that the family has done in the name of "peace" and their god, Itempas.  Her position is one which she does not want, but cannot escape.

The gods, the Enefadeh, are a completely different matter.  I think it would take too long, and take away some of the excitement of the story, to explain them entirely, so I'll try to not be too detailed.  There were originally three gods: Itempas (light), Nahadoth (dark), and Enefa (everything in between). For multiple reasons, Itempas killed Enefa and imprisoned Nahadoth and his children in human form, and made them servants to the Arameri. The character of Nahadoth is especially engaging because of the way he is constantly changing.  He is almost never the same from one moment to the next, because he embodies wildness and change, but this is what makes him unique and also part of what draws Yeine to him.

Needless to say, the Enefadeh want to recruit Yeine to their side to help regain their freedom and punish Itempas for his evil deeds.  Yet, even if she allies herself to them, Yeine has no guarantees that they will keep their end of the bargain.  Her life is on the line, and she must trust her instincts to make things right again.

I'm excited to read Jemisin's other novels in this Trilogy, The Broken Kingdoms and The Kingdom of Gods.  I expect great things from her and I don't think I'll be disappointed!

The Seduction of the Crimson Rose and The Temptation of the Night Jasmine - Lauren Willig

★★★★★★★★★★ (8/10) for both

Since  I read two books from the same series back to back, I decided it would make more sense to write one review about both instead a two individual ones, to keep from repeating myself unnecessarily.

I'm really impressed with Lauren Willig.  The more books I read in her Pink Carnation series, the better I like them, and the more absorbed I get. The strangest part is that I seem to be reading them backwards (most recent to least recent) so I wonder a little bit if that means that her first novels were better, or if I'm just getting more wrapped up in the idea of the European flower-spy plots.  Either way, both The Seduction of the Crimson Rose and The Temptation of the Night Jasmine were superb! Engaging from start to finish, and with twists that were genuinely surprising (especially in the case of Crimson Rose - hint hint).

As such, I'll star off with Crimson Rose.  The entire book is based off the the point that the Black Tulip must be found, and killed, if possible, and the Pink Carnation has decided that Miss Mary Alsworthy would be the perfect bait.  Mary, whose sister Letty recently wed Mary's would-be suitor, is recruited by Lord Vaughn to try to lure the Black Tulip out of hiding.  Through their business relationship, Mary and Vaughn have wonderful bouts of verbal sparring (kudos to Willig for all the entertainment) which leave both wanting more than just words, but each unable to do anything about it.  Their budding personal relationship was interesting to watch unfold.  Weird, but interesting. Instead of the usual falling head over heels at first sight that usually happens in these types of novels, the two actually grow their love from seeds of mutual disdain.  Mary knows Vaughn's reputation as a dissipated rake, while Vaughn knows Mary reputation as an almost ruined society beauty with manners to match.  Neither personality is attractive to the other, but Vaughn and Mary are later drawn together by -- wait for it -- their intelligence. Vaughn admires Mary's ability to think and converse in the style he does, and Mary loves Vaughn for being everything that her typical suitor is not: brutally honest, insensitive, rude, and completely arrogant.

As for the rest of the book, which is equally engaging and fun, Willig throws in a very big plot twist at the end involving Jacobites (which I needed the historical note to figure out why Jacobites would be in a Napoleonic novel) that sent me reeling. Another interesting bit that continues throughout the novel is Mary's strained relationship with her sister and brother-in-law.  I completely understand why she feels awkward. I know I would feel strange if my sister married the man that was supposed to marry me, but it's fun to see how they all cope.  Willig also uses this as an opportunity to show what happens to women who don't or can't marry: after her sister's marriage, Mary is forced to depend on her for financial support, and her only way out would be a marriage of her own. 

And of course, as Mary and Vaughn's relationship evolves, Eloise and Colin's own relationship buds and blooms.  I missed the first novel in the series, so I've had to piece together what happened to bring these two together, but from what I've read so far, Willig wants it to work out between them.  This time, Eloise and Colin survive yet another bout of doubt. Eloise, while doing research on Lord Vaughn meets Colin's sister's conniving ex-boyfriend, only to leave Colin with the suspicion that the ex and Eloise are in cahoots to get the Selwick papers. With a lovely date to follow...

On to The Temptation of the Night Jasmine.  Here, there is no real mystery to solve.  Robert, the Duke of Dovedale due to a familial technicality, has just returned from over ten years in India, to track down Wrothan, the man who killed Robert's commanding officer. Robert has sworn revenge, but the problem is that Wrothan has disappeared, and he can only assume that Wrothan has retreated back to England.  However, Charlotte, daughter of the previous Duke who died when Charlotte was only nine years old, believes and hopes that Robert has finally come home to be the Duke that his title says he is.  She has hopes to marry him -- partly because she remembers his kindness to her when her father died, and because she sees Robert as her knight in shining armor come to rescue her from her unloving grandmother. A hilarious train of mistaken ideas and false implications begins, that can only end with a proper explanation on both parts, but I loved reading all about it.

Wrothan, on the other hand, took some more effort to find.  Robert has to covertly enlist the help of Lord Staines in order to gain entrance to the Hellfire club: a clandestine group of lordlings whose meetings tend to start with opium and end with an orgy (it's their idea of exotic rebellion and sin).  The Duke is not keen on joining this club, but sees it as his only means to find Wrothan, who was a friend to nearly every member of the club.  His plan works, but Robert finds out that Wrothan's treachery goes much deeper than a single murder, and the mystery I expected to find comes out at the end, with me wondering who the mysterious Frenchman really is and what he wants.

Meanwhile, our academic Eloise falls under the impression, on a visit to Selwick Hall, that Colin is secretly a spy, after a series of half-heard remarks, unforgivably early phone calls from Dubai, and bits of torn paper on the floor of Colin's study.  The truth is much funnier and makes more sense than Eloise's assumptions, but her mental journey from initial ideas about Colin as a spy to her relief when she hears the truth from Colin herself, makes me think that what you read (whether history or fiction) tends to color your ideas about the world.  Eloise, whose dissertation about spies left espionage on the brain, made an erroneous conclusion because she thought it would be slightly interesting if the family who began a school of spies, would keep spying as a family tradition as well.

I'll leave the rest for you to read, because these books are too much fun to spoil by all of the little details, but I do believe that I'll be reading the rest of this series (which I think I've said before), hopefully starting with The Secret History of the Pink Carnation! Thank you Lauren Willig for deciding to be an author!

Crown Duel - Sherwood Smith

★★★★★★★★★★ (9/10)

Spoilers ahead!  I couldn't find a way to not write about them. :)

Without a doubt, Crown Duel is one my my favorite weekend reads. It's such an engaging novel that I just zoom straight through it because I don't want to stop until it ends, and even then, I always wish that there would be a sequel or something so that I could just keep reading. I can't quite pinpoint what is so fantastic about this novel, but I think it has something to do with the fact that it has a little bit of everything: rebellion, magic, love, misunderstandings, mystery, war, peace, silliness, parties, friendship.

One of the situations that drives this novel is the comic/tragic misunderstandings between the heroine, Meliara, and a reputed Court dandy, the Marquis of Shevraeth.  They get off on the wrong foot (to put it mildly), and are at odds with each other almost the entire time.  It's amusing to watch their verbal forays, especially when I know what each is thinking while they do not.  Most of their inability to reconcile is due to pure stubbornness and a fear of being mistaken or rejected. Neither one wants to say something that might potentially embarrass either of them. 

As a heroine, Meliara is a wonderful character.  She is intelligent, proud, clever, and faithful to her ideals.  She is a countess (sharing the rule of her county with her brother), but she is not ashamed to admit that she grew up barefoot and running around with the village children.  She is devoted to her people, and puts herself in danger in order to help them.  Yet, she's also extremely brave for going to a place she'd sworn never to go: the Court of Remalna.  She'd been prejudiced against court life early on by her mother, and refuses to visit even after she and her brother Bran, with a lot of help from the Marquis, are victorious against the tyrant king, Galdran.  Somehow, she finds the courage to face her fears, and does pretty well.  She becomes popular, partially because of her "rustic" nature, and enjoys the friendship and help of her future sister-in-law, who assists her in adapting to the customs of the court.  Meliara is just an amazing person, who I'd be friends with, if she weren't fictional.

One more thing I love about the novel, as I do with any good fantasy world, is how vivid the culture, customs, and landscapes are.  Every detail is very consistent, and I enjoy immersing myself in the world of Remalna.  There are the Hill Folk, with whom the kingdom has a pact against chopping down the special colored trees, who are neither human nor tree, but provide a type of protection and support to whoever honors their pact.  Meliara is one of those, and she has a strong connection with the Hill Folk, more so than anyone else she knows.  There is also the court, which changes midway through from treacherous and shallow, to fair-minded and pleasant.  The former is mostly seen as memory through things mentioned by characters like Bran's fiancee Nimiar.  The latter is what Meliara encounters, and although there is still a good amount of intrigue (what court doesn't have intrigue?), this court is something that Meliara can deal with.

Note:  The Crown Duel that I read was "originally published as two novels Crown Duel and Court Duel."  As I discovered upon reading the author's note, when published as two novels, the character and place names are different to try to place the novel in another of Smith's worlds.  So, if you read this and the names I mention don't match, this is the reason.  Which is a good excuse to get this double version: you don't have to stop to change books!

I just have to say it again: Love it! It's perfect becuase I can have danger, rebellion, and near tragedy in the morning, and intrigue, love, and happiness by dinner. I enjoy reading this book so much that I think I'm going to need a new copy after a few more reads. 

Just Jane - Nancy Moser

★★★★★★★★★★ (6/10)

I am an avid Jane Austen fan, and I am not afraid to admit it. I'm the type of person whose copy of Pride and Prejudice falls open to the most awkward, embarrassing, fantastic proposal scene in literary history.  So, naturally, I like to read about the author, and see how her life is different and similar to the lives of the characters in her novels. I thought Just Jane would be a good addition to my knowledge collection of the life of one of my favorite authors, and for the most part, it was.

Just Jane is written in a quasi-diary fashion, where everything is told from Jane's point of view, and each "event" only takes a day or so, or else, Jane is recapping what's been happening while she's talking about the current situation. I liked this format because it didn't include dates, so the novel just flowed from one event in Austen's life to another, just like it did in her real life.  As far as I can tell, the author, Moser, tried to be as factual as possible, while taking artistic license with conversational details, and I appreciate her honesty.  It's just a pity that so many of Austen's letters were burned after her death, or the world would know so much more about her, despite Austen's claim that she wanted to remain unknown.

What made Just Jane slightly difficult to read was the speed.  I felt like it just dragged on and on without going anywhere.  I could put down this book in the middle of a sentence and not feel bad about it.  Usually I try to finish a paragraph, if not a chapter, when I know I have to stop reading, but with this novel, I put it down because I wanted to stop reading.  I needed mental breaks to wake myself up and hope for the story to get to something more interesting, something more than just Jane's unhappiness that she's been separated from her sister again.  I understand that these occurrences would have been saddening for her, but I do wish that Moser could have kept them to a minimum for the novel's sake.

However, the content of the novel is wonderful.  Going in, I knew that Jane was very close to her only sister, Cassandra, but Moser was able to convey just how deep their relationship was, and how Cassandra and Jane practically were two halves of a whole.  There is a comment made that a man would have to marry them both to get a complete wife, and I think that's exactly how the two sisters would have seen it as well.  The relationships between Jane and her various family members are just as complicated as the relationship between the characters in her books. Jane Austen is not nearly so ashamed of her parents as Lizzy and Jane Bennet, but she does notice all her brothers' flaws, as well as feeling the pain of not being able to control her own life, since she must do as her father bids her. 

The things that seems most depressing is Jane's love life.  Her "romance" with Tom Lefroy doesn't seem nearly as involved as it does in the film "Becoming Jane." Yes, I know it's a film, and films are not known for their adherence to truth, but I thought that maybe there was a little truth in it.  From what Moser explains in her notes at the end of the novel, there was nothing serious between Jane and Tom.  She liked him, but she never truly expected to marry him when she thought about it.  Even sadder is that there was a budding romance between her and a young man after her family moved to Bath, but he was killed in an accident before the two young people even got a chance to know one another.  It seems as though Jane and Cassandra were destined to remain single; a force of nature couldn't get them married because, had they married, Jane would not have published her books, and Cassandra would not have been there to support and encourage her.  Sad or not, Jane's devotion to her sister, and her desire to not marry without love are the reasons the world has novels from Jane Austen's brilliant mind.

I couldn't believe how long it took me to read Just Jane, since I've read other histories of her (including this great little book called "101 Things You Didn't Know About Jane Austen" by Patrice Hannon), and I've never been quite as bored I as was reading Just Jane.  This is not to say that it was not a good book; I'm just warning you that it will take a while, and you should take frequent breaks for naps.