BOOK REVIEW: Cilka's Journey by Heather Morris

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

Cilka’s Journey is a new historical novel by Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz. It tells the story of one of the characters from The Tattooist: Cecelia Klein, known as Cilka. At the age of sixteen, Cilka was sent to Auschwitz with her mother and sister. Young and pretty, she was singled out by men in charge at the camps and repeatedly raped. If that wasn’t traumatic enough, she was then put in charge of the female prisoners who were sent to the gas chambers.

Cilka survived the experience riddled with guilt and shame.

After the concentration camp was liberated by Russian soldiers, Cilka was accused of collaboration--sleeping with the enemy--and sent to Vorkuta Gulag in Siberia.

Once again, Cilka was sexually abused. She was chosen by one of the soldiers to be his exclusive “mistress,” and was housed in a hut full of women who were visited regularly by guards who assaulted them.

Cilka was a survivor. She developed bonds with other women in her hut. She found her way into the camp hospital where she was trained as a nurse, working in the medical ward, then in the obstetric ward, and finally accompanying ambulances to accident sites. This was a privileged position. She worked in relative warmth and had access to better food which she shared with the women in her hut. Yet she lived in constant fear that her friends would discover why she had been sentenced to the Gulag–that she had been in charge of the “death block” at Auschwitz–and that her friends would shun her.

Cilka’s suffering and struggle to survive makes for difficult reading. (Perhaps not the best choice for Christmas season.) Yet, like all books in the WWII/Holocaust genre, it’s important. What makes this story unique is its focus on the war’s aftermath--the prison camps in Siberia. A caveat is that the prose is a bit plodding at times and the dialogues are sometimes stilted. Nevertheless, like The Tattooist, Cilka’s Journey is based on a real person. It’s a compelling story that should be heard.

BOOK REVIEW: Forever my Duke by Olivia Drake

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

Forever My Duke by Olivia Drake is book two in the Unlikely Duchesses series. The heroine, a feisty, twenty-six-year-old American named Natalie Fanshawe, is certainly an unlikely duchess. When her best friends, a missionary couple, were killed by British soldiers during a skirmish, leaving behind their six-year-old son, Leo, Natalie promised to bring the boy back to England to his grandfather. The grandfather had disowned his daughter for falling in love with an impoverished gentleman and running away to America. While on her way to deliver the boy, Natalie is trapped by a snowstorm at a small English inn. There, while chasing the mischievous Leo, she meets the hero of the book, Hadrian Ames, Duke of Clayton.

Hadrian is on his way to propose to Lady Ellen, daughter of his deceased father’s old friend and younger sister of the woman Hadrian was supposed to marry many years earlier. But Hadrian’s intended had eloped with another man, which had not disappointed Hadrian all that much. The younger sister is prettier and well-bred and docile, and he believes she will do for a wife as well as any other. It’s time for him to settle down and sire an heir, so he may as well carry out his father’s plan of uniting the two families.

Of course, after meeting cute, Hadrian and Natalie are thrown together to begin an off-kilter courtship. Hadrian falls for Natalie, but recognizes that they are from two different worlds. How can he wed a commoner? An American?

Natalie is as reluctant to wed an English lord as he is to marry “beneath” him. She is happy with the life she has in America and wants very much to return to it. She wants no part of English aristocracy.

And then there is the issue of Leo’s snooty, unpleasant grandfather. How can she leave the child with him? And what will Hadrian do about Lady Ellen, who is expecting a proposal?

The Romance is sweet. The characters are charming. The difficulties they face are real. But in true Romance fashion, love conquers all. To be released later this month, Forever My Duke is recommended for fans of Historical Romance.

BOOK REVIEW: The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

Having been so impressed with Jasper Fforde’s Early Riser several months ago, I bought one of his earlier books, The Eyre Affair, which is book one in the A Thursday Next Novel series.

Set in England in an alternative 1985, this young adult novel follows Thursday Next, a thirty-something-year-old special operative in the Literary Detective Division. Generally, her job involves chasing down counterfeiters and plagarists, fighting copyright infringement, etc. Nothing as exciting as her father’s job. He’s in the Chronoguard, watching out for timeslips and rents in the spacetime continuum, things like that.

In this world, England and Russia have been fighting over the Crimea for a hundred years. Thursday (and her brother and her brother’s best friend who was the love of Thursday’s life) were in the military at one point. The battle that they were in was botched, her brother died, and, afterward, Thursday’s relationship died too. Long story.

The plot of this book includes an evil mastermind with strange superpowers, a seemingly all-powerful corporation that pretty much owns England, and an absent-minded but brilliant inventor (who happens to be Thursday’s uncle), as well as a slew of special operatives in Thursday’s division and other more dangerous and secretive divisions. Their lives intersect when one of the uncle’s inventions allows the evil mastermind to kidnap characters from works of fiction. If he can steal the original manuscript and manipulate (or kill) the character, changes ripple through every copy ever made through time. Naturally, as a literary detective, Thursday must prevent him from doing this dastardly thing.

As in Early Riser, the setting  is crazy and takes a while to sort out. There are quirky characters galore and a galloping plot. The protagonist has a snarky, funny voice. However, I didn’t enjoy this novel anywhere near as much as Early Riser. Maybe the style didn’t seem as original this time around. Or maybe the humor seemed too forced and the plot a bit too sloppy. It was a quick, fun read, but I don’t think I’ll be chasing down the next book in the series.

BOOK REVIEW: Follow the River by James Alexander Thom

Our historical fiction book group is meeting this weekend to discuss Follow the River by James Alexander Thom. This fictional captivity narrative, based on the true story of pioneer Mary Ingles, is an interesting adventure. However, first published in 1981, the story shows its age.

In 1755, at the time of the French and Indian War, the heavily pregnant Mary Ingles lived with her husband William and two young sons in Draper’s Meadows, a small community in western Virginia, the first white settlement west of the Allegheny divide. One morning, while William Ingles and Mary’s brother were working in the fields, the settlement was raided by a party of Shawnee. Several members of the community were killed. Mary, her sons, her sister-in-law Bettie Draper, and one man were taken captive.

The first part of the novel charts the journey upriver, though Ohio, near to present day Indiana. Mary impresses the Shawnee (particularly the chieftain) with her quiet dignity and bravery. She passes some kind of test when she gives birth to a daughter three days into the ride without making a sound, and then continues the journey without complaint.

They arrive finally in the Shawnee village where they meet with other white captives. There is a gauntlet to run. The captives are either killed or parceled out as slaves. Mary is offered the opportunity to become the woman of the chieftain but refuses. He sells her to French traders, but takes her two sons from her.

Broken-hearted, Mary decides to escape. While on a salt-gathering trip, she makes a run for it, leaving her infant daughter with a native woman. She is joined by a tough old Dutch woman. Together, they begin the return trip, on foot, with no provisions, late in the fall.

The second part of the book chronicles their harrowing adventures as Mary leads the way back to Draper’s Meadows by following the river. The women are dependent on one another, but very different in temperament. As they slowly starve, the older woman loses her mind and becomes as much of a threat to Mary as starvation and exposure.

It is a truly amazing survival story. The rich detail of the return journey makes the incredible believable.

While this old-fashioned historical adventure is the type of book I usually  enjoy, I found the second part of the book more engaging than the first. The story of the massacre and Mary’s interactions with her captors utilized every trope of captivity narratives and stereotypes abound. Although the novel is based on oral tradition from the Ingles’ family, the generic quality of the first part of the book made it less interesting.

BOOK REVIEW: A Capitol Death by Lindsey Davis

I was past due for the next Lindsey Davis Flavia Alba mystery, #7, A Capitol Death.  

Shortly before the feared and despised Emperor Domitian returns to Rome to claim a double triumph for a lackluster military campaign, an important official in his transportation department is found dead at the foot of the Tarpeian Rock. A witness saw him moments earlier at the top of the rock. He wasn’t alone.

Flavia Alba, daughter of the retired, renowned detective/informer Falco, has been tasked by her husband, Tiberius, a local magistrate, to solve the murder. (He’s a bit busy helping to arrange the triumph. Plus, he’s still recovering from being struck by lightning on their wedding day.)

With her typical dogged persistence, intelligence, and trademark snark, Flavia Alba interrogates coworkers and acquaintances of the dead man – a man so nasty the list of suspects keeps growing –  in order to solve not just one, but two murders. 

After a slow start, the danger builds as clues start falling into place and she closes in on the murderer.

Tiberius plays less of a role in this investigation. I hope to see more interaction between the two in future books because that spark enlivens the novels. Book 8 is due out next summer!

BOOK REVIEW: A Son at the Front by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton is an extraordinary writer, best known for her novels of the New York “aristocracy” during the Gilded Age. However, she also wrote short stories, plays, nonfiction, and novels covering diverse subjects.

My most recent read is one of her lesser known books, a World War I novel, A Son at the Front.

The protagonist is John Campton, an expat American artist in Paris. A fairly self-centered, shallow man, he has, after a rocky start, become a sought-after portrait painter. Part of his rocky start included a failed marriage that produced a son, George. (Campton’s portrait of George as a boy was pivotal to his success.)

His wife remarried a very successful, wealthy businessman while Campton was still a struggling artist. George was largely raised and entirely supported by his mother and stepfather, a fact that Campton resents. However, now that George has grown to manhood, he and his father have become close. (Although maybe not as close as Campton believes.)  George is about to arrive in Paris and the two will embark on a vacation together.

That was the plan. Unfortunately, this is the eve of the beginning of the war. And, unfortunately, although Campton and his ex-wife are Americans, George was born in France. Almost immediately after George arrives, the borders are essentially closed and George, a French citizen, is called for military duty.

Thanks to the machinations and connections of three doting parents, George is assigned to a safe desk job away from the front. But the parents live in constant terror he will be reassigned. As the war gets underway and then drags on, and the casualties mount, Campton’s reactions to his son’s safety are conflicted. How can George be so content to remain behind the lines?

The novel is a beautifully written psychological study not only of the protagonist but of numerous people in his sphere. War effects everyone, the privileged and the poor. Some throw themselves into relief efforts. Some try to ignore the war and get on with life. And everyone loses loved ones.

The action is muted for a “war novel.” Yet the tension is palpable. Campton is a sympathetic if not particularly likeable character. Of course, it’s a tragic novel. How could it be otherwise? But Wharton writes masterful tragedy.

BOOK REVIEW: Someone to Remember by Mary Balogh

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

I love Mary Balogh’s historical romances and have been following her latest series, “A Westcott Story” (or the “Someone to. . .”) since the beginning. The new release, Someone to Remember, is billed as a novella.  At 272 pages, it’s shorter and simpler than the longer novels in the series. It’s probably best to read some of the others in order to understand the large Westcott family and their sphere of influence before reading this one.

This is Mathilda’s story. Previously known as the spinster aunt, a fussy stickler for propriety, Mathilda was usually present but generally invisible until the previous book, Someone to Honor. Then she comes briefly to the fore—boldly, if secretly, approaching a man from her past to help solve a crisis in the family.

That action draws the man, Viscount Dirkson, into the Westcott world where he and Mathilda rediscover one another.

Interestingly, Mathilda is in her mid-to-late fifties, making her an unusual heroine for a Regency Romance. Her only prior experience with love was when she was a debutante. She was courted by Dirkson, who was then merely Charles Sawyer. Charles was very young (as was she) and known to be wild. When he asked her father for her hand, her father refused. Obedient daughter that she was, Mathilda sent Charles away. He became even wilder, seemingly proving that her parents were correct to deny his suit. But Mathilda never loved another.

A good deal of this short novel is taken up explaining the backstory and reminding the reader of who’s who in the expanding Westcott saga. But, since the Westcotts are old friends by now, I was pleased to get the reminders and a hint of what they are currently up to. The progress of the now-resumed romance proceeds smoothly and chastely. There are no surprises, except, perhaps for the reaction of Mathilda’s grumpy mother. The book lacks the steamy love scenes of Balogh’s other books, though it does imply that Mathilda and Charles are not too old to feel passionate. It’s a good, solid romance that gives Mathilda a voice. It also introduces new single young people who may well end up getting books of their own.