BOOK REVIEW: Vengeance in Venice by Mary Lancaster

I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

Vengeance in Venice by Mary Lancaster is the 6th book in the Silver and Grey mystery series. Throughout the series so far, Constance Silver, a beautiful brothel owner and Solomon Grey, a handsome, very wealthy businessman, have fallen in love while solving murders, have married, and are now on their honeymoon in Venice.

They are charmed by the magic of the city, but unfortunately, they are not able to enjoy the peace for long. Witnessing a man being beaten by a group of thugs, Solomon goes to the rescue, and while he is busy, Constance is kidnaped. Although she is quickly released, it’s clear they have stumbled into the middle of a dangerous rivalry. This event is a segue into a murder. And even though they are supposed to be enjoying their wedding trip, the pair dive into the investigation.

The motive for the murder is unclear. Is it jealousy? Greed? Political rivalry? A combination of all three? It seems everyone they meet is a possible suspect. But every time they think they’ve solved the puzzle, they are proven wrong. When the actual culprit worries they are getting too close to the truth, they may be the next victims.

This is a roller-coaster ride of a whodunit that kept me guessing the whole time. The pace gets faster and faster as the story barrels along to its conclusion. The novel could stand alone, but the nuances of the relationship would be lost. If you’re a fan of historical mystery/romance, start with book one. The series does not disappoint!

BOOK REVIEW: What We Can Know by Ian McEwan

I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

What We Can Know is a new novel by Ian McEwan, author of Atonement. In it, he examines the pitfalls of trying to recreate the past by looking at fragments. What is missing may be the most important part.

The premise is clever: a gentler vision of the future we leave to posterity, but a disturbing one nonetheless. In the year 2119, after a nuclear apocalypse and climate catastrophe, England is largely submerged, leaving it an archipelago. People live in small island communities and have to take boats from one island to the other. Infrastructure is limited, but there are remnants, including higher education and libraries up on the higher ground, where scholars can suss out the lessons of the past. Thomas Metcalfe teaches literature from 1990 to 2030 to sullen college students who have no interest in the topic. He co-teaches with historian Rose Church. She is his collaborator, critic, girlfriend, and life partner.

Thomas’ area of study, his research project, is a lost poem from 2014. Composed by famed poet Francis Blundy, the poem “A Corona for Vivien,” was a birthday gift for his wife. He recited it at her birthday dinner party in front of a small number of guests. Because he wanted it to be special, he destroyed all early drafts and made only the one copy. The poem was never published. It disappeared. But the fact that it had once existed was well-documented, and speculation about it was rampant, until interest faded.

Thomas visits the archives and reads all the letters, texts, emails, and journals of Bundy, Vivien, and the guests at the dinner party to construct a story of what happened, in hopes it will lead him to the poem. In the process, McEwan builds a mesmerizing view of a future world, and a complicated look at the time we are living in.

None of the characters are very likeable, but their flaws make them seem very real. Beautifully written. Highly recommended.

BOOK REVIEW: Jane Austen: The Original Romance Novelist by Janet Lewis Saidi

I received this book for free from Netgalley. That didn’t influence this review.

I don’t read many biographies except for research for my own writing. But I do enjoy biographies of my favorite writers. Jane Austen: The Original Romance Novelist by Janet Lewis Saidi (Pocket Portraits) is a compact life story of the brilliant Regency era writer. This short book walks the reader through Jane’s life, correlating events with excerpts from her novels and letters to her family members. It mentions the speculation about possible love affairs of Jane’s, but does not speculate. It concludes with the timelessness of Austen’s work by pointing out her influence on contemporary movies, fan fiction, and Bridgerton.

Fans of Jane Austen, particularly budding fans who want to know more about her, will find this a great introduction.

BOOK REVIEW: The Hanging of Ruben Ashford by Lauren Small

The Hanging of Ruben Ashford by Lauren Small is a thoughtful historical mystery set in Baltimore in 1917-18, a place and time that can be seen as defined by Jim Crow laws. The novel fully embraces the historical setting, my favorite kind of historical novel.

Josie Berenson is fascinated by human behavior. Why do people make the choices they make? Although she has a good position in a psychology lab in Boston, running rats through mazes, a chance encounter with Dr. Nell Winters changes both their lives. Nell is physician in Baltimore, and Josie joins her there. They fall in love, and their devotion grows stronger as they face challenges together.

Nell has not joined in the white flight from her Baltimore neighborhood. She is a firm believer in racial equality and will treat both Black and White patients. However, she believes change must come slowly. Josie is more of a crusader. She wants change now.

Josie joins the clinical practice of Dr. Adolf Meyer (a real person) at the Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at Johns Hopkins. He is also interested in human behavior, and often consults in unusual psychiatric cases. Josie’s job is to dig deeper, not only interviewing patients, but their loved ones, neighbors, servants, etc.

While some of her methods are not exactly ethical (like bullying a servant into betraying details she is not supposed to reveal, without considering that the lack of discretion might get the poor girl fired) Josie is effective.

The mystery is set in motion when a young White teacher at a home for “feeble-minded children” is found murdered in a stable. Her head has been bashed in. A Black employee of the school, Ruben Ashford, is found holding a bloody hammer, standing over the body, blood on his clothes. According to the lawyer who has presented the case to Dr. Meyer, there are two witnesses to the murder and Ruben has confessed. Yet the lawyer doesn’t quite believe in his client’s guilt because there is no motive. Dr. Meyer assigns Josie the task of investigating the murder, not to find the culprit, that’s pretty clear, but to find out why he did it.

As Josie begins her investigation, she is confronted with the reality of the racial divide in Baltimore, which seems much greater than what she was accustomed to in Boston. As Josie struggles to understand Ruben Ashford, Nell fights the Spanish Flu epidemic that is decimating the inhabitants of the city. 

The novel puts on display the injustices of the day, the horrors of the epidemic, and the challenges two women face loving one another. 

BOOK REVIEW: The Man in the Stone Cottage by Stephanie Cowell

The Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily, and Anne) are renowned nineteenth-century authors whose writings are admired to this day. Their romantic, atmospheric masterworks (Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey, and others), have always inspired curiosity about the authors themselves. As the daughters of a country curate, they lived fairly circumscribed lives, and yet they certainly evoke far-ranging passions in their novels.

The Man in the Stone Cottage: A Novel of the Brontë sisters by Stephanie Cowell explores the lives and loves of these women through the eyes of Charlotte and Emily. Charlotte, who craves love, has attempted to leave home, to earn money as a teacher and, perhaps, expand her horizons; she returns, disappointed, to the security of home. Emily never wants to leave. Wandering the surrounding countryside is escape enough. She does not seek romantic love, but nevertheless, love—in the shape of a mysterious man who has come to occupy a hidden stone cottage on the moors—may find her.

In this beautifully written novel, Cowell breathes life into these two extraordinary women as well as the more peripheral characters: their sister Anne, their loving but overbearing father, and their derelict but beloved brother Branwell. Within their experiences are hints of the inspiration for events in their novels, but these are so subtly woven in, readers will not mistake the Brontës’ fiction for being autobiographical.

The tone of The Man in the Stone Cottage is bittersweet. The love and support of the sisters for one another is keenly felt, but they are not blind to each other’s foibles. Their devoted care of their father and brother is not without a tinge of resentment. (Or maybe this reader is resenting them on behalf of the sisters.) Their lives are not as limited as a cursory look at their biographies might imply. While this is a work of fiction, not biography, there is nothing in the story that rings false. Cowell’s novel provides a window into the hearts and minds of the brilliant writers and then expands upon what is known with an imaginative look at what could have been.

Thank you to the author and Regal House for a review copy!

BOOK REVIEW: Crooked Cross by Sally Carson

There is a bookstore in the UK that I’m determined to go to one of these days. Persephone Books specializes in reprints of neglected/forgotten female writers. I’ve discovered a few great novels from the bookstore’s instagram posts, but one in particular caught my eye recently. Crooked Cross by Sally Carson, originally published in 1934, is set in the early days of Hitler’s rise to power. At first, the re-released edition was not available in the U.S., then I could only find the audiobook. Now, finally, there is a kindle version, that I quickly downloaded. Right about the same time, it was featured in a NY Times book review. (Here’s the link but there may be a paywall.)

The novel begins on Christmas Eve, 1932, with a celebration in the home of the Krugers, an “ordinary” German family. Both parents are alive and loving. And there are three adult children, two boys, Hemly and Erich, and one girl, Lexa. The boys have been largely unemployed for years due to the post-WWI economic depression in Germany. Both are restless, looking for something to do. Lexa is the main protagonist, a woman who loves her family, loves her community, and serves as something of a focal point in both. She’s young and naive, but strong and knows her own mind. She is also in love with Moritz Weissmann, a talented physician at the local hospital, to whom she is engaged to be married. Moritz is a Catholic, as was his mother. But his father is Jewish. Moritz is beloved by pretty much everyone and is good friends with Hemly.

The slow spread of fascism and Hitler-worship insidiously envelops them all. Her brothers embrace the Nazi party because they finally have jobs. Hemly, who is not a strong or particularly intelligent man, also loves it for the feeling of belonging and purpose that it gives him. Erich, handsome, athletic, charming, and with a cruel streak a mile wide, loves it because of the power he can siphon off from it and the license it gives him to enjoy his sadistic tendencies. Lexa tries to ignore what is happening, but she lives in a constant state of unease. Of disconnection. The book does a wonderful job of showing how the whole town is on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Tempers flare. People get crotchety and mean. Old friendships fracture. Scapegoating grows rampant. And Moritz is first quietly shunned, and then openly persecuted for being Jewish. 

The one sure, unalterable fact is that Lexa and Moritz remain true to one another.

The novel is written in an old-fashioned style. It isn’t at all subtle. It’s not a heroic, hiding-Jews-in-the-attic story of WWII Germany. The main characters are mostly Nazis. Not reluctant Nazis, but men and women who whole-heartedly embrace what Hitler is selling. Written essentially contemporaneously with the events of the novel (fictional, but not so fictional), the end of the story was not known by the writer. And it is particularly chilling because we readers, while recognizing parallels, know how this story will ultimately end, but not how ours will.

BOOK REVIEW: The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

Kate Quinn’s The Briar Club is another winner. I read The Rose Code for one book club, and now The Briar Club for another. It’s a fast-paced, can’t-put-it-down read.

The plot focuses around two murdered corpses found in a women’s boarding house in Washington D.C. in 1954. Initially, the discovery is narrated by the house. It’s gimmicky, but it works. The police are there investigating, and the house lets us know that the murderer is still in the building.

Each chapter then focuses on a different character, all boarders in the house. It goes back 4 years and works its way to the time of the murder. The central protagonist is a mysterious woman named Grace March. Before her arrival, the residents had been strangers, each with their own problems, dreams, and secrets. With her gracious and kind friendliness, Grace becomes a confidante and supporter of each. The women become a found family. But while Grace gets to know them, and brings them together, nobody really knows her.

The blossoming relationships grabbed me, and the murder mystery pulled me along. And of course, the historical tidbits kept it fascinating.

BOOK REVIEW: A Lady's Guide to Scandal by Sophie Irwin

A Lady’s Guide to Scandal by Sophie Irwin is a funny, closed-door Regency Romance that kept me delightedly turning pages.

Eliza Balfour, now Lady Somerset, is a 27-year-old widow who will be extremely wealthy as long as she obeys the morality clause in her deceased husband’s will. The late Lord Somerset was a miserly, much older curmudgeon, who wants to continue to control her from the grave. Eliza doesn’t expect this to be a problem. She has never misbehaved in her life. However, her cousin Margaret tempts her to live a little. What could go wrong if they spend a few quiet months in Bath?

Eliza is willing, mainly because she needs to get away from the new Lord Somerset, her husband’s nephew. Eliza and this handsome young man were in love, long ago, before she was coerced by her parents to marry for title and wealth. She’s still in love with him, but he accused her of dooming them both to unhappiness because of her lack of spirit and she’s sure he still despises her.

In Bath, she is thrown into the company of Lord Melville, a Byronesque figure who dazzles her with his charm, wit, and kindness. Unfortunately, he has a reputation as a rake, and by spending time with him, her reputation is likely to suffer. If it does, she risks losing her inheritance. Even worse, the new Lord Somerset gets to be the judge of her behavior, and he comes to Bath on a weak excuse to see her. It seems he isn’t over her, either.

Suddenly, Eliza finds herself the object of two men’s attentions. Who is the right man for her? Readers will form their own opinions pretty quickly, but Eliza has good reasons for her bafflement. Can she be in love with them both?

This novel is sweet, well-paced, and well-plotted, but even if it wasn’t, I’d recommend it for Melville’s witty conversation alone.