Review 1808: The House in the Cerulean Sea

~ whatmeread ~ 2 Comments

I have to confess to having picked this book out because of its cover and title. What a great word “cerulean” is.

Linus Baker is a caseworker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He goes completely by the book, which may be why he is selected for an unusual task—to investigate the orphanage on the island of Marsyas where seven magical orphans live under the tutelage of Dr. Parnassus. He is instructed to report everything.

On the island, he meets Dr. Parnassus as well as Ms. Chapelwhite, a sprite who helps with the cooking and care of the house and children, and the seven orphans. These unusual children include Lucy, the six-year-old Antichrist.

This novel is well written and occasionally amusing, but I don’t read much fantasy, and when I do, I have high requirements for it. This isn’t really my genre. But my biggest problem with it was trying to decide who it was written for. It reads like a children’s book and its sense of humor is juvenile. However, Linus and Dr. Parnassus have conversations on such topics as Kant and I think it was Schopenhauer that would certainly be above most kids’ heads, and he uses vocabulary (like “self-flagellation”) that seems aimed at adults. In addition, the novel features a love story between two middle-aged men, which doesn’t seem as if it would appeal to even gay children, so more for adults. But the tone of the piece smacks of children’s literature, and not necessarily good children’s literature.

Finally, though, the novel was just too saccharine to appeal to me. I ended up reading about 2/3 of it but eventually decided that I wasn’t invested in the outcome. The kids were cute but kind of one-dimensional, although I thought the concept of Lucy was clever and sometimes funny.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Neverwhere

Review 1807: Murder by Matchlight

~ whatmeread ~ 1 Comment

It’s 1945, and London is in blackout during the period of the Blitz. Nevertheless, Bruce Malling is out for a stroll in Regent’s Park. He is sitting quietly on a bench near a footbridge when he sees a man pop over the railing and hide under the bridge. A few minutes later, another man strolls onto the bridge, calling out to ask if anyone is there. By the brief flicker of matchlight as the man lights his cigarette, Bruce sees another face above his. Then he hears a thud. Bruce runs up to find the man dead and then catches the other man as he comes up from under the bridge and tries to run away.

A police constable arrives on the scene as does a doctor, who pronounces the man dead. His ID identifies him as John Ward, but when Inspector MacDonald inquires about him, he can find no one who knows anything about him except that he was Irish, was charming, and had no visible means of support. Inquiries at his previous residence then reveal that he was not John Ward at all.

This novel is full of colorful characters that MacDonald meets at the victim’s boarding house. It is an interesting puzzle with lots of secrets. Being part Irish myself, I didn’t appreciate the aspersions cast on them in one passage, but otherwise I enjoyed this mystery.

I received a copy of this novel from the publishers in exchange for a free and fair review.

Murder in the Mill-Race

Two-Way Murder

The Lost Gallows

Review 1806: Harlequin House

~ whatmeread ~ 7 Comments

When Mr. Partridge decides he needs a holiday, he just walks off from the Peters Lending Library, leaving it closed. He may be an older man with a shape like an egg, but he is lawless. Wandering around the seaside town of Dormouth Bay, he spots Lisbeth Campion and follows her. Lisbeth is the type of girl that men are always following. He not only follows her, he has tea with her and her aunt.

Later that night, he sees Lisbeth getting into a car with a man. He gets in the back. Finding they have landed in London at midnight, he learns that Lisbeth has been looking for her brother, Ronnie, who through a misunderstanding, of course, has been in prison for delivering cocaine and is just out. Ronnie claims he thought it was baking powder.

Although Lisbeth is engaged to a fine, upstanding captain in the army, Captain Brocard wants to ship Ronnie to Canada with a small pension, as he has never successfully kept a job. Lisbeth has other plans, though: to rehabilitate Ronnie so that the captain returns to find him an upstanding citizen with a job.

Using Mr. Partridge’s five pounds, the three find a modest lodging in Paddington and set out to find jobs. And they find very odd ones.

Harlequin House is a charming, silly comedy. It made me laugh.

Cluny Brown

The Stone of Chastity

Our Spoons Came from Woolworths

Review 1805: The Mercies

~ whatmeread ~ 2 Comments

A freakish storm kicks up one day in 1617 and drowns all the men on the island of Vardø who are out fishing. Only young boys and old men are left. There is no one to help the women, so they have to learn to fend for themselves, including fishing, which is considered unwomanly. Maren’s fiancé and her father and brother are all gone, so she must try to take care of her mother, her brother’s Sámi wife Diina, and her little baby nephew.

In Bergen, Ursa’s father has made one poor decision after another since her mother died, leaving the family relatively poor. She is happy taking care of her invalid sister, but soon she learns her father has betrothed her to Absolom Cornet, a Scot he hardly knows, who has been appointed the Commissioner of Vardøhus, the rarely occupied fort on Vardø. Her father thinks he has done well for her, but they have no idea that Cornet is being sent to root out witchcraft.

Ursa is taken aback at the primitive conditions she finds in Vardø, in remote Finnmark, and she knows nothing about keeping house. When Maren brings her some skins the villagers have prepared to keep the cold from coming up from the floor, Ursa asks her to teach her how to take care of the house and cook. Thus begins a deep friendship.

But Ursa’s husband has already begun looking for witches. The first names that come up from a vicious bunch of pious women are Maren’s Sámi sister-in-law, an older woman whose large house is a target of envy, and Maren’s bold and unconventional friend Kirsten.

The Mercies is a deeply involving fictionalization of true events in early 17th century Norway. Seldom have I felt such a growing feeling of dread as when I read this novel. It is truly gripping. It seems well researched and has believable characters.

Widdershins

Corrag

The Witches: Salem, 1692

Review 1804: Beheld

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments

In the Afterword to Beheld, TaraShea Nesbit says she wrote it because she wanted to hear the women’s voices she missed in reading about Plymouth Colony. Certainly, the voices we hear in the novel are mostly those of the women or the dispossessed.

Beheld focuses on some of the stories we never heard about Plymouth, particularly the divide between the Puritans and the other residents—indentured servants, farmers, carpenters, and the other people meant to do the work and who do not share the Puritans’ beliefs.

Alice Bradford is the second wife of the governor, William Bradford. His first wife was her beloved friend Dorothy. But Dorothy died upon her arrival in Plymouth under circumstances Alice doesn’t understand, and shortly after Alice’s own first husband died, William sent for her to be his wife.

John and Eleanor Billington signed contracts to work for seven years as indentured servants in exchange for a parcel of land for each male in their family in the proposed colony in Virginia. But first the Puritans’ boat The Speedwell sprung a leak and the Puritans forced themselves onto The Mayflower. Then the boat went north to Massachusetts instead of Virginia. The Puritans took charge of the colony, not allowing the same rights to other men, not allowing anyone but themselves to trade with the natives, giving themselves the best parcels of land, and finally cheating John out of his son’s parcel.

This is an interesting novel that depicts the Puritans as self-righteous and self-serving. Of course, most of us who have studied this period and place since grade school know this, but perhaps not how much. Miles Standish is shown as greedy and violent. I felt this novel was quite eye-opening.

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War

The Witches: Salem: 1692

Caleb’s Crossing

Review 1803: Five Windows

~ whatmeread ~ 8 Comments

In Five Windows, D. E. Stevenson uses the metaphor of windows to reflect her main character’s growth, or change in mental outlook.

David Kirke (his last name again misspelled on the back cover of my Furrowed Middlebrow edition) begins his story as a young boy during World War II, the son of a rector of a small Scottish village. He comes from a happy home and loves rambling the countryside with his friend Malcolm, a shepherd, or Freda, a girl from a nearby farm.

David grows up a bit naïve, even after he goes to live with his uncle Matt in Edinburgh so that he can attend a better school. His eyes are opened to a less salubrious life when he moves to a London boarding house while he works as a clerk in a law office. That’s when he begins to learn that people aren’t always trustworthy or likable.

Five Windows follows David from childhood until just before he is married. It is pleasant, light reading about a likeable hero.

I received this book from the publishers in exchange for a free and fair review.

Winter and Rough Weather

Vittoria Cottage

The Baker’s Daughter

Review 1802: White Dog

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments

In this last of the Jack Irish novels, Linda has just left Jack for a position in London when he accepts a job from his ex-law-partner Drew. Sarah Longmore, an artist, has been accused of murdering her ex-lover Mickey Franklin. Sarah says she didn’t do it, but the prosecution has a witness placing her near the scene, and the murder weapon was a gun Mickey loaned her. Drew wants Jack to look for evidence that she is innocent.

Jack begins poking around but is unable to find out much except that three of Mickey’s former associates are missing. Against his own instincts, Jack and Sarah become lovers, but later when Jack goes to her studio to meet a witness, the building explodes, killing Sarah and badly injuring Jack.

Now that Jack’s client is dead, Jack is more determined than ever to find out who killed Mickey. The novel does not neglect Jack’s sidelines of learning cabinet making, hanging out with the old men Jack calls the Fitzroy Youth Club, and helping Harry Strang and Cam with horse-racing projects.

Again, Temple has produced a suspenseful and exciting novel in his Jack Irish series.

Bad Debts

Black Tide

Dead Point

Review 1801: Classics Club Dare! The Grand Sophy

~ whatmeread ~ 23 Comments

The latest Classics Club Dare is to read something romantic for February, so I have chosen The Grand Sophy from my list.

When Sir Horace Stanton-Lacey unexpectedly arrives at Lord Ombersley’s home to ask his sister to take charge of his daughter Sophy for a while, he discovers a depressed household. Lord Ombersley’s gambling debts had almost overrun the establishment until his son and heir, Charles Rivenhall, inherited a fortune from a distant relative. Charles “did something with the mortgages” and paid off the debts, and now he is trying to get the household to economize.

Charles is also engaged to Eugenia Wraxton, whose outward sweetness hides a self-righteous and meddling disposition. Her plans to occupy the family home after the wedding depress everyone except Charles.

By the time Sophy arrives, the announcement of her cousin Cecilia’s engagement to Lord Charlbury has been delayed by his having contracted mumps. Cecilia now thinks herself in love with Augustus Fawnhope, a devastatingly handsome but vague young man who fancies himself a poet.

Sophy arrives like a breath of fresh air. She brings a monkey and a parrot to entertain the children, a shy greyhound, and a fabulous black steed to ride. She immediately realizes that the family needs her help. And she never shirks her obligations.

Sophy is a firecracker of a heroine, and The Grand Sophy is one of Heyer’s most beloved novels. There is lots of fun to be had as Sophy’s stratagems twist and turn the plot. The novel is a re-read for me for the Classics Club, but I loved it this time just as much as I did the first time I read it.

Frederica

Venetia

Faro’s Daughter

Review 1800: The Midnight Library

~ whatmeread ~ 16 Comments

I am usually fairly good at spotting books I’m just not going to like without reading them, but I try to keep an open mind. Sometimes I am surprised if I do read one, as I was when I read Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. Sometimes I am not.

Nora Seed’s life started out with a lot of promise, but for one reason or other she quit doing all the things she’s good at. Haig begins with a countdown of days and hours before she decides to commit suicide. Having taken an overdose, she ends up in a library of all the lives she could have had, free to try some of them out.

I kept my patience and read through the first alternative life, about a quarter of the book. Then I quit.

Why didn’t I like it? Let me count the ways:

  1. The horrible sprightly tone with which it discusses a character who is so miserable she is suicidal
  2. The choppy rhythm of its writing. Almost every sentence begins subject verb subject verb, more like a children’s book than an adults’.
  3. The lack of character depth, or really any personality at all
  4. The lack of any kind of depth or subtlety
  5. The confused and poorly thought out working of the library
  6. Pretty much everything else about the book

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

A Man Called Ove

The Virgin Suicides