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★★★★★★★★★★ (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!
★★★★★★★★★★ (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.
★★★★★★★★★★ (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.
★★★★★★★★★★ (9/10)
Graceling: a person from one of the seven kingdoms with an extraordinary ability, possibly amazing, possibly mundane. This is a strong part of what convinced me to purchase this book whilst perusing the shelves of an unfamiliar bookstore. I've read other novels where certain characters are given extraordinary abilities, but not quite the way that Kristin Cashore does, and certainly not with the consequences that go along with those abilities.
So, basic setup. There are seven kingdoms, with not very creative names, each ruled by a king (we'll get into that later), and throughout the kingdoms are people who are Graced. A Grace could be something as simple as being able to hold your breath for a very long time, or something as impressive as mind reading or being an invincible fighter. The telltale sign that a person is Graced is that their eyes are two different colors, and the color combination varies from Graceling to Graceling. We begin in the Middluns, where Lady Katsa, niece to King Randa, has had the Grace of killing since she was eight years old. She is an extraordinary fighter that has incredible speed, stamina, and doesn't feel cold, hunger, or pain as much as a normal person does. In the Middluns, anyone who is Graced is under the jurisdiction of the king; they are sent to the king's nursery as children, and if their Grace proves useful, they must work for him. If not, they are sent home to fit in as best they can.
Katsa has basically become a thug for King Randa in that she hurts, maims, threatens, or kills people when he tells her to, and she despises his control over her. She has a humane conscience, even though she considers herself to be nothing more than a savage beast because her Grace is so violent. Still, she practices and hones her skills in order to control her Grace, to the point that she knows exactly how to use her skill to only hurt someone, or knock them unconscious, instead of brutally wounding them.
The good part begins with the appearance of Prince Greening (terrible name, but there it is all the same), nicknamed Po (I'm not sure which name is worse). He is also Graced and comes from Lienid, where the Graced are free to live their lives as they choose, under no constraint from the king. Po shows up in Randa City looking for his grandfather, who has been kidnapped. Katsa has recently saved the man from his kidnappers, and her friend, Prince Raffin, is helping nurse the old man back to health. Their intention is to keep him hidden until Katsa and her friends, who together form the Council, can find out who was behind the kidnapping in the first place (the kickoff for the adventure to follow). Po joins in after convincing everyone that he is trustworthy and will be of value to their search. Little does anyone know that he has a secret that will test the friendships he's formed with members of the Council.
What I particularly like about Graceling is the depth of the emotions and relationships between characters. Katsa is a thoroughly contradictory character because she cannot be at peace with herself, but the way that Cashore creates Katsa's relationships with Po, Raffin, and the others around her is wonderful to read. Katsa's war with herself over Po is specifically drawn out and complicated, but in a good way; I was never really sure how the situation would be resolved until it was.
Cashore's world is very well thought out, and quite detailed. It's easy to get an idea of what each kingdom is known for and how they all interact. She's also very good at keeping you guessing; there are more than a few minor twists that come out of nowhere, but make the story that much more interesting, such as how Katsa is able to overcome Leck's power over her. I also really liked the character of Bitterblue (another really bad name). She's only about eleven years old, but she such a plucky character, that I just can't help but love her. Bitterblue has to endure quite a bit and survives, while not giving up being a child.
To sum up: the character and place names tend to be ridiculous and uncreative, but the story is well worth the read, and I'm going to try to find the next novel in the series, Fire, as soon as I possibly can. I want to know what else will happen in this world of Graced people, and what new characters will come out of Cashore's mind.
★★★★★★★★★★ (5/10)
I've been reading Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels for almost ten years. I've read many of them multiple times, and I feel that I know the world pretty well. There's a certain quality to writing, plot, and character development that is essential to how the Pern functions as a creation. It seems as though every detail of the culture, geography, and character are so thought out as to have been breathed onto the page instead of written. Dragon Harper has none of these qualities. I think I could best describe it as bland and detached, which makes it practically the opposite of a good book.
I also seem to know Anne's writing style well too because what bothered me the most about Dragon Harper was that it was nothing like reading a Pern novel. The writing was completely different (in a bad way), and it didn't really feel like Pern was at the heart of the novel. This was more like a generic novel with bits of Pern thrown in. I wasn't drawn into the story as I usually am; I wasn't even very sympathetic towards the main character, Kindan.
At first, I thought that it would just take a while for the story to get moving; perhaps Todd's writing style is one that takes more time to build up to the major crisis. I kept thinking that until I finished the book before I realized that my speculations were wrong. Then I thought that perhaps I was just unhappy with the subject: a super-flu plague that kills off about 1/3 of the planet's population. That's depressing enough, and I don't particularly like depressing, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Todd's level of writing familiarity with Pern was what was getting on my nerves. He clearly knows the culture and reasoning behind the fictional world, but he's missing a level of involvement that is critical to making a Pern novel work. Perhaps he should have included one or two characters from previous novels to help make the connection better. If there was already a defined character he could build off of, it might have helped to make Dragon Harper more Pern-like.
It's difficult to explain why a book that has all of the elements of a Pern novel (dragons, harpers, Holds, Weyrs, etc.) just doesn't come through as genuine, but this is exactly why I don't think I'll read Dragon Harper again anytime soon. I kind of feel bad for Todd because he even had his mother (the woman who created the whole fantasy world of Pern in the first place) to collaborate with. I would have thought having her along would guarantee a better novel.
The story itself isn't too bad. Kindan, a young apprentice at the Harper Hall, is our hero. His goal in life is to become a journeyman harper so that he can fulfill his dream to become the harper at Benden Weyr, maybe even Impress a dragon while he's at it. Unfortunately, a plague starts circulating the planet at the wrong time, and he's forced to give up his dream in order to save the lives of those he loves. This is where Todd makes his most fatal mistake. He kills off a character that Kindan loves. In a Pern novel, no one important ever dies, or if they do, they're old when it happens. Personally, I really don't like it when major characters are killed off, so this added to my dislike of a book I already wasn't fond of. Still, the plague changes Kindan's life in good ways because he now has a future in the Harper Hall as a healer, or whatever he should choose to be.
The "epilogue" threw me off too. It consists of about 1/4 of a page and nothing happens. I'm not even sure what's going on in the ten lines on the page. I turned the page expected there to be more, and I found nothing. Was there supposed to be something else, and it didn't make the publishing deadline? This is something that in a second edition, I would hope that the McCafffreys add on a bit to make their vision clearer as to what happens to Kindan.
I recently bought another Pern book, written by Todd alone, and I'm very wary about reading it after reading and being disappointed by Dragon Harper. I'm going to take a break from Pern for a while, and maybe some mental distance will make it easier to read this other Todd novel. Here's hoping to a better grip on writing about a world he knows so well!
★★★★★★★★★★ (7/10)
I didn't realize until after I started reading The Betrayal of the Blood Lily that I was coming into the series a bit late. I'd never heard of this series, and was a bit surprised to find that this was the sixth novel in a series of flowery named spy novels. Nevertheless, I forged ahead, regardless of what I might not be clued into (having no idea if this was the type of series where you would need to have read the previous ones to understand the current selection). And, I must say, this was a terribly delightful book! I felt like I was being thrown curve balls every few pages, and was kept on my mental toes to keep track of what happened, but the experience was wonderful.
The whole thing starts off with a grad student, Eloise, working on her dissertation. (Eloise is a bit of a strange name for an American, though. I think of Eloise as being a six-year-old children's book character.) Of course, she's writing about spies, but like many a grad, she'd rather keep researching than commit to writing out a thesis. Strangely enough, her boyfriend's family has a connection to her research and the story of Penelope Deveraux, or Lady Frederick Staines, comes about when Eloise in going through the boyfriend's aunt's notebooks from an office in India. So, there's a lovely change of time period and location throughout the novel; Willig takes me from London in the relatively present day, to India around 1804. I don't quite see how Eloise contributes to the novel, except that maybe she is what connects them all, or that she serves to increase my suspense about what will happen in Penelope's story. However, overall, I think that Eloise's life is believable, detailed, and amusing, in it's own way.
The bulk of the novel is devoted to a very short time in India. It must be only a month or two that goes by from beginning to end, and a good deal of that time is spent traveling from Calcutta to Hyderabad, so not too much goes on there. Willig starts off with a scandal, and gives more details about it as the story goes on. At first, there's just a vague hint that Lord and Lady Frederick's marriage is tainted somehow. It's a quick hook, and I took the bait and kept reading, but the story is about something more than their relationship, which isn't a good one. It's about so many things, and none of them are really more important than the others. Everything is necessary and vital to whatever happens next, and it's difficult to recap the novel without going through it in a ridiculously detailed way.
Suffice it to say that Penelope gets a happy ending, and I hope that means she learned from her mistakes. I wish there had been more spying involved, but the novel was lovely all the same. I also would like to know who/what the Blood Lily was meant to be, since it's not mentioned in the novel at all, as far as I can remember. I really liked the descriptions of India, and the relations between the British and Indian cultures, as well as the way Willig created such a twist at the end that I never saw coming. I've already purchased two other novels in this series, in no particular order, and look forward to being as delighted by the as I was by Blood Lily.
★★★★★★★★★★ (10/10)
My 10 star rating does coming with a warning: I am ridiculously partial to Jane Austen, all of her characters, and any novels either take part in, so it is likely that this estimation of Mr. Darcy's Diary is extraordinary biased.
However, it's wonderful to see that an author cared about the other side of Pride and Prejudice. I've read the novel, criticism of Jane Austen, essays on various characters, histories of the era, and I even own a book on the life of Miss Austen, but I've never come across a novel like Mr. Darcy's Diary. Amanda Grange covers every episode from P&P and creates what happened when Mr. Darcy was out of the picture, but best of all, I could really believe that Grange knew how Darcy would think. Each entry in his "diary" was true to character: logical, proud, sometimes a bit cold, not too embellished, and straight to the point. I don't think Austen herself could have done a better job with Darcy's inner workings.
Grange also includes insights into other characters as well, ones who are more connected to Darcy's world than the Bennets'. Bingley's mind is better known through this novel because Darcy includes their conversations, Bingley's flaws and virtues, and Darcy's own opinions of the way Bingley acts. Caroline Bingley's malice is even greater than in P&P because Grange allows the reader to see what she really thinks when Austen wasn't looking. There are even scenes where her almost shameless flirtation and pursuance of Darcy make her look more manipulative and disgusting than I already thought she was. Best of all, since this is Darcy's diary, there is more thought on Georgiana. There is very little in P&P, mostly because she just isn't that important. She is a vehicle for Wickham's downfall, and a soft spot for Darcy himself. Now, Grange imagines what Austen might have done with Georgiana if the story had taken a different tack. I'd want Georgie as a little sister if she could be anything like this!
Collectively, I think that Mr. Darcy's Diary only took me about 5 or 6 hours to read. It was quick, but I think that it had something to do with my delight in the subject. Even with it being over so quickly, I was immensely happy with the book as a whole. I especially enjoyed Grange's imaginings on how Elizabeth and Darcy's married life would be. They are married in November, but Grange continues on into March with his entries. What happens after the wedding is probably one of the biggest questions ever asked about P&P and I loved Grange's ideas about how Darcy would think and feel about his new life. The changes in characters like Kitty and Anne de Bourgh, after November, are particularly to be noted.
This novel is best read after reading P&P for the first time or knowing it front to back by heart, otherwise, you might be tempted to compare the two as you go, which defeats the purpose of Diary. It's written by a person who obviously loves P&P, and who has taken great care to be accurate and to to Austen's original. As quoted on the back of the paperback edition, "Amanda Grange has perfectly captured all of Jane Austen's clever wit and social observations to make Mr. Darcy's Diary a must read for any fan." She's spot on for every detail, every scene, and every wish that readers have had for years.
I know that Grange has a whole series of these diaries from characters throughout Austen's novels, and I can't wait to read them all! I'm glad I started here, with Mr. Darcy's Diary, because retellings, or alternate tellings, of Pride and Prejudice can be very tricky. I've seen some fail utterly. Yet, if an author can do such a superb job with it, I can only imagine other writings in the same vein can only be as good, if not better.
