BOOK REVIEW: An Artless Demise by Anna Lee Huber

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

I’ve been eagerly awaiting book 7 in Anna Lee Huber’s The Lady Darby Mysteries series: An Artless Demise. This is a superb series with complex plotting, well-rounded sympathetic characters, vivid historical setting, and a lovely romance.

Lady Kiera Darby is a talented portrait painter whose first marriage was a nightmare. Wed to an older man, a prominent anatomist, she was brutally abused physically and psychologically as he forced her to view his cadaver dissections and sketch them for an anatomy book he was writing. Cadavers were hard to come by legally, so her husband purchased them from "resurrectionists" (grave robbers). When even these were difficult to find, the body snatchers sometimes resorted to murder.

Lady Darby’s husband was caught up in one of these murder scandals. Although she was innocent, she found herself ostracized by polite society. Traumatized and, thankfully, widowed, she retreated to her sister and brother-in-law’s country estate.

In book one, she becomes embroiled in a murder investigation and there she meets inquiry agent Sebastian Gage. Handsome, charming, intelligent and open-minded, Gage is the perfect match for Kiera, though it takes them a while to figure that out. They embark on a crime-solving partnership, falling in love and wedding over the course of the next few books.

Now back in London, Kiera is pregnant, rediscovered as a popular portraitist, and finding friends in the ton. This newfound calm cannot last. First, there is significant political upheaval as Tories and Whigs argue over the Reform Act, and then another "burking" incident occurs. A young boy is murdered so that his corpse can be sold for dissection. The purchasers notice that the body is too fresh and send for the law.

The boy is one of the "Italian Boys," poor young immigrants who labor in the poorest areas as virtual slaves. His murder draws attention to the plight of child poverty and enslavement. It also refocuses the spotlight on resurrectionists and reawakens the scandal surrounding Kiera.

If this weren’t enough, young lords--sons of influential men--are also starting to be murdered in fashionable parts of the city. Fear mounts that these men were targeted for burking as well. London is about to erupt in panic.

Kiera and Gage race to solve the crimes while dealing with a boatload of emotional issues of their own. Once again, their levelheaded detecting carries the plot while the ongoing development and deepening of their relationship provides an emotionally satisfying read.

Start the series with book one, The Anatomist’s Wife. The books are addictive!

BOOK REVIEW: Flotsam by Erich Maria Remarque

It’s been eight years since I read All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, a truly extraordinary classic novel about WWI. I loved the book, yet it never occurred to me to look to see what else he’d written. I’m embarrassed to admit I just assumed he’d written this one great book and nothing else of note. How wrong I was!

Flotsam is a novel about German refugees during WWII. Primarily Jews and political "criminals," thousands of people were forced to leave Germany, stripped of their passports, to become unwanted, country-less exiles. Some are little more than children deported along with their parents. Without papers, they are unable to find work or permanent residences and so live lives of hunger, uncertainty, fear, and often despair as they are deported again and again across the borders of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, and France.

The story begins in Austria and primarily follows two men as they navigate life along the borders. The first is a political dissident named Steiner who was forced to leave his beloved wife Maria behind when he fled Germany. He is a man of steady nerves, many talents, and an innate goodness. The second, Kern, is a twenty-one-year-old man tossed out of Germany with his parents. His father is Jewish; his mother is not. She was allowed to stay in Hungary because she had been born there. His father was deported and Kern lost track of him before he, too, was deported.

Steiner and Kern meet when they are both detained in Czechoslovakia and kicked across the border to Austria. Steiner takes Kern under his wing for a short while before they separate. Kern manages to find a temporary residence in a boarding home for refugees where he meets a young Jewish refugee, Ruth. The two form a bond. They link their fates to one another and quickly fall in love. Love sustains them in the trials ahead.

Like All Quiet on the Western Front, this novel is another masterpiece of historical fiction demonstrating human suffering and resilience. By relating the day-to-day struggles of refugees, it draws the reader into their lives and forces us to empathize. Flotsam realistically portrays the characters’ humanity, their kindness to one another, the constant tension of being displaced, and the simple relief in finding a safe -- though always temporary -- haven. The novel tugs at the heart and conscience of a reader who takes the security of citizenship for granted.

Flotsam is at times a hopeful novel, showing how some – even most -- people are innately good and will help those in need as best they can. People can look at injustice and recognize it for what it is. But there are too many others who will not only steal from or cheat the vulnerable, but will also take pleasure in being cruel.

Steiner is a survivor, a philosopher, and a cynic. But he is generous to those in need. Kern and Ruth are young and still hopeful. Kern is too trusting, which costs him at times, yet he does not become embittered. Despite their setbacks, Kern and Ruth do not abandon hope.

The novel shows the fates of other refugees who drift in and out of the lives of the three protagonists. Some survive. Some disappear. And some succumb to despair. It’s a beautiful novel, at once heart-wrenching and uplifting. Published in 1939, Flotsam is as relevant today as it was then.

BOOK REVIEW: A Lord Apart by Jane Ashford

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

Jane Ashford’s new Regency Romance series, The Way to a Lord’s Heart, showcases her talent for sweet, entertaining romance. Her protagonists come with troubled back-stories and find their way to one another with gentle support and occasional banter.

Book one in the series, Brave New Earl, introduces the theme (which reminds me a bit of the theme of the linked stories in Mary Balogh’s Survivors Club.)

The Earl of Macklin is an older man, a widower, who has decided to put to use his knowledge of grief to help grieving younger gentleman move on with their lives. Previously, he aided his nephew. Now, in book two, A Lord Apart, he hopes to help the son of an old friend.

Daniel Frith, Viscount Whitfield, has inherited his father’s title and estates after the sudden death of both parents in a shipwreck during a trip to India. His grief is muted by the resentment he feels. His parents ignored him throughout his life, choosing travel to exotic places over the mundane duties of parenthood. Even when he grew old enough to accompany them, he was never included. Now Daniel is trying to sort of the accounts of the ancestral home, a chore he finds dull and impossible.

Penelope Pendleton is a baronet’s daughter who has been thrown out of the home she grew up in through no fault of her own. Her brother, an activist who was killed at the Peterloo massacre, was posthumously found guilty of treason against the crown. She was imprisoned and questioned mercilessly by government investigators who could not believe she knew nothing of her brother’s activities or friends. Fortunately, just as she emerged from custody with nowhere to go, she learned that she had inherited a cottage in another town. Her benefactor was anonymous and wanted to remain so.

Penelope is too grateful to question, though her curiosity is immense.

The cottage is part of the estate of Viscount Whitfield. When he learns of her arrival and that the cottage is now hers, his curiosity is also piqued. Moreover, he’s annoyed. Not with her, per se. He has no intention of wresting the cottage from her. But he feels it is another example of his parents’ disdain. Why shouldn’t he know why part of his father’s lands have been willed to a stranger?

The two characters have a lot of baggage, but they are reasonable people and kind to one another. It isn’t long before they are spending a good deal of time puzzling out the mystery of the inheritance. And falling in love.

The government agents aren’t through with Penelope yet. And the strange lives of Whitfield’s parents leave much to be explained.

The romance is enjoyable and the plot swift moving. It is a little annoying that Whitfield’s title effectively protects him from the rough treatment Penelope has to endure. And the ending was a bit too pat with the resolution of the crisis being achieved much too easily, thanks to Whitfield and Macklin’s connections.

Nevertheless, there are a couple of other grieving young men Macklin is determined to help. I look forward to seeing their stories unfold.

BOOK REVIEW: These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer

These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer is supposed to be a fan favorite so I picked it up recently at a Barnes and Noble "Book Haul." Although I love most things Heyer, this one disappointed. The situations are a bit too outrageous, the reason for the old vendetta that initiates the action is too vague, and the romance is not credible to my mind. The story felt dated, and Heyer’s romances generally do a better job standing the test of time.

The Duke of Avon, Alistair, is a jaded man so wicked he has earned the nickname Satanas. Which people actually call him to his face. He has a lot of old grudges but he particularly hates the Comte de Saint-Vire. (I’m not sure exactly why. A woman maybe?) Avon is filthy rich and despises the lower classes. He recognizes his own poor behavior but excuses it because he’s a duke and can get away with anything.

While out walking one evening in Paris, he is almost bowled over by a young (nineteen-year-old) scamp. The boy is fleeing his brother who is trying to beat him for laziness. Avon buys the boy to be his page, giving the brother a jeweled pin and telling the boy he now owns him body and soul. So that’s a bit distasteful. And not really helped by the fact that the boy is ecstatic, considering Avon his savior.

Turns out that the boy, Léon, is actually a girl, Léonie. She’s the unacknowledged daughter of the Comte de Saint-Vire. The coincidence of the meeting is never explained as anything but sheer chance, though Avon does suspect the truth from the start, so at least that explains why he bought the boy/girl.

Avon constructs an elaborate scheme to get back at the Comte, using the secret daughter. Meanwhile, Léonie charms one and all with her plucky irreverence, her cute mangled English, and her extraordinary beauty. She’s innocent and wise, and she has fallen head-over-heels for Avon. Yet she believes he can’t love her back because she’s baseborn. (Not to mention far too young for him.)

Avon makes her his ward as part of his plot. He calls her "enfant", and "my child", etc., etc. She complains that all men her own age are silly – and so they seem. But Avon is forty and does treat her as a child until he realizes that he’s fallen in love with her. Even then, though she twists him around her little finger and he becomes less domineering, the relationship is lopsided and kind of icky.

Without giving away too much, there are confrontations and abductions. Avon is cool and composed come what may. Léonie is courageous and resourceful. But the characters never seemed real to me and the situations seemed like farce that never quite hit the mark as funny. (Although, admittedly, Avon’s dry reaction to his siblings’ effusiveness and his friend’s dull moralizing are often humorous.)

I’m glad to have read this because it’s been on my to-read list for a long time. But it’s not a book I’d recommend for anyone new to Heyer, because I think it could be off-putting. She’s written much better romances.

BOOK REVIEW: They Found Him Dead by Georgette Heyer

I received this book for free from Netgally. This did not influence my review.

They Found Him Dead struck me as an awful title for a murder mystery, yet I’ve discovered I love Georgette Heyer’s mysteries almost as much as I love her romances, so an off-putting title could not deter me from requesting this book for review.

Heyer often opens her novels by throwing her reader into the middle of family muddles where the family trees are large and complicated. I’ve learned not to fret when I’m lost at the beginning. Heyer does such a fine job of drawing her characters that their individual personalities and quirks define them. Very quickly the large cast sorts itself out.

In They Found Him Dead, a large dysfunctional family gathers with long-time business associates to celebrate the sixtieth birthday of the head of the family/head of the business. It is not a pleasant party. Some of the attendees, anticipating a large inheritance, are hoping he won’t have many more birthdays. Moreover, his business partners are peeved at his reluctance to cough up the money for a risky new investment opportunity. When he is found dead the following morning, there are plenty of potential murderers.

The local police investigate and declare the death to be the result of a weak heart. Although those who know the situation have doubts, nothing is pursued until the heir is shot in the head in the middle of the day while sitting at his desk and the murderer disappears into thin air.

Now they bring in Inspectors Hannasyde and Hemingway. Although it seems likely they have two murders to solve, they can’t be sure the first death was a murder. And it seems impossible to find someone with motive and opportunity to commit both. The more they explore, the more baffled they become.

There is a sweet romance brewing alongside the mystery. A nephew farther down the line of inheritance (Jim Kane) has become smitten with Miss Allison, the companion of his great-aunt. (The elderly aunt is the reigning queen of the family.) While everyone believes Jim is far too nice to be a suspect, the second murder unexpectedly moves him into the spot of heir, which means he has an uncomfortably strong motive. The inspectors will not rule out the possibility Jim killed both men until it becomes clear someone is also trying to kill Jim. Solving the crimes takes on a new urgency.

There are a couple of likely villains, but the tight plotting makes it difficult to pin the blame on anyone in particular. Meanwhile, the business and family dynamics propel the plot forward until Hannasyde plucks out the final clue and everything falls into place.

This novel is not as amusing as Death in the Stocks, but it is still very entertaining. I look forward to more of the Inspectors Hannasyde and Hemingway series.

BOOK REVIEW: The Pursuits of Lord Kit Cavanaugh by Stephanie Laurens

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

Stephanie Laurens is one of the reigning queens of Historical Romance, so I’m not sure how so many years have gone by since the last time I read one of her novels. I saw The Pursuits of Lord Kit Cavanaugh on Netgalley and decided it was time to jump back in.

Lord Christopher Cavanaugh (Kit), the young half-brother of a marquess, has had a difficult upbringing. His mother was something of a Lady Macbeth character. He managed to avoid her schemes and matchmaking by pretending to be an irredeemable rake. Now that she is dead, he’s stuck with his reputation. Undaunted, he leaves London for Bristol to follow a passion he has long yearned to indulge: he wants to start a company that builds luxury ocean-going yachts. He has the capital, a good business sense, important connections, and a close friend who knows yachts. Bristol was once a hive of wooden ship-building activity, but since the coming of steamships, the city is in decline. The city’s elders are thrilled beyond measure that a man of consequence is bringing jobs back. Kit has his eye on a particular warehouse for lease and has no difficulty securing it.

Unfortunately, the building is not exactly vacant. A local charity has been using it. But the owners assure Kit the charity will quickly clear out.

Sylvia Buckleberry is a clergyman’s daughter who has found her calling: running a school for the sons of local dockworkers and craftsmen. She has the support of the local church and has been able to hire a couple of teachers and purchase supplies. But she relies on the goodwill of the owner of the warehouse recently secured by Kit for a venue. When she learns that the warehouse is about to be leased out from under her, she is determined not to let the school fail.

Sylvia and Kit have met before, at the wedding of friends. Kit was intrigued but put off by her cold shoulder. Sylvia was cold on purpose because she was actually giddily infatuated with his bad-boy image and appalled at herself for it.

Sylvia expects the worst from Kit and is surprised when he acts opposite the way she expects. In fact, he outdoes her in concern for the welfare of the students, the fate of the school, and the general condition of the unemployed dockworkers and boat builders. His wealth is seemingly bottomless and he stands ready to hire everyone who wants to work.

There is a problem though. Not everyone supports the school and not everyone is rooting for the success of Kit’s business. While the romance is the main focus, the story is carried along by this additional conflict and potential danger.

The novel is a quick, enjoyable, escapist read. The protagonists verge on a bit treacly as they spread their goodwill thickly and hold no grudges against those who wish them ill – most of them anyway. But their pleasantness was a nice break from heavier reading. It’s clear why Laurens is a perennial favorite.