BOOK REVIEW: The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

Back in the day, I had the same reaction as Elaine Benes (from Seinfeld) to the movie The English Patient. Although it isn’t a popular opinion, I was bored throughout. As a consequence, I never read the book by Michael Ondaatje, even though I know novels are almost always better than the movies based upon them.

Well, I finally picked up the book. Bits of it are familiar from the movie, but the book contains so much more.

Revolving around the lives of four characters whose paths cross in a bombed-out Italian villa as World War II is ending, it shows various ways that people are injured by war. The title character, identified through most of the book as simply the English patient, is an unknown. He may not actually be English. Burned beyond recognition, he doesn’t even know himself. However, he retains memories of a tragic love affair and those memories trickle out over the course of the novel.

His caregiver, Hana, is a young nurse struggling with numerous losses. She refused to leave her patient as her colleagues retreated further north. These two are joined by a thief who had been employed by the army as a spy. He had been friends with Hana’s father many years earlier and retains an affection for her. When he heard her name mentioned in a random place, he resolved to find her. He becomes interested in the patient as his suspicions grow that the man was also a spy, but for the Germans. The fourth character is a young Indian sapper, named Kip, skilled at defusing bombs. Their overlapping stories are told in segments that combine memory with ongoing action.

While much of the language is beautiful and the story intricately told, my overall reaction was mixed. In parts, the self-conscious literary style grew plodding and my interest flagged before I could sort out the meaning. My favorite parts were the more straightforward presentations of Kip’s skill at deactivating bombs of increasing complexity. In fact, Kip quickly became my favorite character.

The love story that I remember as central to the movie does not seem compelling in the book. It was a brief adulterous affair with an element of obsession but unconvincing love.

This may have been a book that I would have enjoyed more if I had never seen the movie. Other readers may be interested in comparing the two.

BOOK REVIEW: Match Me If You Can by Michelle Willingham

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

Match Me If You Can by Michelle Willingham is the delightful third book in the Regency Romance series, The School For Spinsters.

Emma Bartholomew is a low-status gentlewoman who has not succeeded in finding a husband despite five seasons in the marriage mart. Her stepmother is resorting to desperate measures (an auction!) to marry her off. Emma’s failure to attract a husband is due to a lack of self-confidence which is in turn due to the fact that she is almost blind. She has none of the usual female accomplishments. But she does possess an internal strength that has helped her to navigate the world though she is nearly sightless. And she refuses to be auctioned off. She takes herself to Miss Harding’s School for Young Ladies, otherwise known as the School for Spinsters. Miss Harding is a matchmaker.

Cormac Ormond, Earl of Dunmeath, is in desperate need of a wife and, even more importantly, an heir. So desperate, he has an off-putting tendency to propose to women within 10 minutes of meeting them. His desperation stems from the belief that he is dying of the same illness that took his grandfather, father, and older brother. It’s a family curse, affecting only the males. 

Cormac meets Emma at a party where they briefly converse. They meet again at the School, where Miss Harding has invited Cormac and a few other men to dinner so that Emma can practice conversation. Cormac deduces Emma’s secret blindness. But he also understands the strength of her character. Emma is drawn to him, yet when he blurts her secret out in company, making her an object of pity as well as ridicule, she believes he is untrustworthy and wants nothing further to do with him. Until he confides his secret to her.

Emma doesn’t believe in the family curse, although she certainly believes in his illness. She’s determined to save him. This novel highlights the struggles of these unconventional protagonists as they find their way to love.

BOOK REVIEW: Tales of Timeless Romance: A collection of tales from “The Write Track” contest finalists 2022

Whether you are a die-hard historical romance reader or just curious to dip your toe into the genre, Tales of Timeless Romance: A collection of tales from “The Write Track” contest finalists 2022 is an enjoyable taste of romance. The collection includes 6 novellas by authors Sophia Nye, Lois Templin, Kel O’Connor, Elizabeth Donne, Sarah Richmond, and Isabella Hargreaves. Three are based on Robin Hood and his Merrymen, two are set in the world of Arthurian legends, and one is a re-imagining of the love story between Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning (with fictional protagonists.) The stories each run roughly 120 pages. The steam level varies from sweet to steamy. There’s something here for everyone who wants to read a quick love story!

BOOK REVIEW: The House of Lamentations by S. G. MacLean

The Captain Damian Seeker series by S.G. MacLean is one of the most compelling historical political thriller series that I’ve come across. Start with The Seeker. You won’t be disappointed.

After reading The Bear Pit (book 4) I was so impatient for book 5 that I bought the ebook because that was the earliest release I could obtain. But then, concerned it was the last book in the series, I put off reading it because I didn’t want the story to end. Then, unfortunately, it fell off my radar and languished on my TBR pile. Until I saw that there will be a book six released in September. 

I pulled out my ipad and settled down to enjoy The House of Lamentations. 

Set in the mid-1600s near the end of Cromwell’s controversial reign as Lord Protector, the novels bring the time period to life with all its idealism, uncertainty, and violence. Captain Damian Seeker is one of Cromwell’s most loyal men. He began his career in the army, but now serves as an enforcer and spy. He is a brutal man with a complicated past and a soft core.

After the events of book 4, Seeker is sent to Bruges to keep tabs on loyalist ex-pats who are plotting against Cromwell. Seeker takes on the identity of “John Carpenter,” insinuating himself easily into places the royalists would not like him to be. There is a double agent working within royalist circles who feeds information to Seeker. However, since their plots are consistently foiled, higher-ups have concluded there must be a spy in Bruges and they are sending a “she-intelligencer” to uncover him.

Strangers come and go in Bruges and Seeker tries to keep tabs on them all. His most pressing current task is to identify the “she-intelligencer” before she can discover his contact or, worse, expose him. But he has an even more pressing concern. He has been separated for more than a year from the woman he loves back in England. Now, with Cromwell’s England becoming more violent and more of a dictatorship, Maria’s brother has decided to move to Massachusetts and take Maria along. Seeker races against time to complete his mission and return to England to reunite with her before she goes.

The complex plotting will keep readers guessing. The atmospheric writing is superb. Seeker’s internal conflicts keep him as compelling a protagonist as ever. Now, on to book 6!

BOOK REVIEW: A Great Idea at the Time: The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books by Alex Beam

I’m generally curious to see lists of “Best Books” of various types, wondering how many (if any) of them I’ve read. But I am particularly fascinated by the idea of the “Great Books” courses that were taught in the early part of the mid-twentieth century. One of these, possibly the best known, was a series of books published by the Encyclopedia Britannica under the auspices of the University of Chicago – the project spearheaded by university president Robert Hutchins and his henchman, philosopher Mortimer Adler. They chose books not necessarily for their literary merit, but for the ideas they contained. Naturally the entire project was controversial – who gets to decide what books are great and what makes them so -- but it had a surprising impact.

A Great Idea at the Time: The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books by Alex Beam is a somewhat humorous look at the project, beginning with its precursors and following through to its imitators. It is particularly enjoyable for its peek into the personalities of the generators of the book series, the educators turned hucksters. The books themselves get very little attention, but that really isn’t the point. The idea is the point. If you’re interested in the Great Books fad, this is a wonderful place to start.

BOOK REVIEW: Fatal Legacy by Lindsey Davis

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

The ancient Roman private investigator Flavia Albia is back in the eleventh novel in this mystery series by Lindsey Davis. The latest novel is Fatal Legacy. Although the story can stand alone, the relationships will make the most sense if you start from book one.

This book opens simply enough with a small debt collection. Two customers (seemingly an adulterous couple) leave the bar/eatery owned by Albia’s aunt without paying their bill. The aunt is furious and sends Albia out to identify them and collect – not a difficult task for the investigator. However, when Albia locates the family involved, she is asked by the matriarch to search for something else, proof that her younger brother is not a slave. They are a family of freedmen businesspeople. The matriarch’s niece wants to marry a handsome young citizen. The young man’s family, aware of their background, wants to be absolutely sure there is no lingering taint of slavery attached to the potential bride’s father. Unfortunately, the freeing of the slaves took place over forty years ago, the will is missing, and witnesses are gone, presumed dead.

As Albia searches for documents that may not exist, she becomes entangled in a knot of family feuds, lawsuits, and lies. She enlists the help of her own extended adoptive family and a host of acquaintances as she sorts out the mess. This case does not involve the same level of danger as her usual pursuits, but rather lays out a head-spinning multi-generational family brawl.

Albia uses her trademark irony and good sense to ferret out the truth. Her own clever husband is increasingly sidelined in the series now that they are happily married and he has retired from public life. In this novel, he is essentially a nonentity. While Albia insists that they are both committed to the marriage, it wouldn’t surprise this reader if he is eventually phased out. While his involvement is missed, Albia is competent enough to carry on alone.

BOOK REVIEW: Not that Duke by Eloisa James

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

Not that Duke by Eloisa James is the third novel in the series, The Would-Be Wallflowers. It is a Regency Romance that works well as a standalone.

Lady Stella Corsham is not a typical heroine. She is short, stout, freckled, bespectacled, and worst of all, intelligent. Orphaned when young, she has been raised by her aunt and uncle, who despair of marrying her off. She has breeding and a good dowry, and a good number of suitors, but they are fortune hunters and third sons and Stella is not interested. She fantasizes about the Duke of Huntington, Sylvester, a man she considers something of a friend. But he is the most eligible bachelor in the ton and he is very obviously besotted with the beautiful, delicate, and somewhat scandalous Yasmin Regnier. 

Sylvester is not the only man chasing after Yasmin. And Sylvester is very competitive. He does not like to lose. He’s fond enough of Stella. He knows his mother would prefer Stella for a daughter-in-law. But he is determined to court (and win) Yasmin. His problem is that Yasmin seems to prefer another man, one of Sylvester’s best friends. This man is stodgy and intellectual. A much better match for Stella. Or so everyone assumes.

But as the Season progresses, and Sylvester and Stella spend more time together, he starts to appreciate her lusty charms. A lot. He just needs to convince her that it is more than lust that he feels for her. For that, first he has to convince himself.

This is a fun frolic of a Regency Romance with a high steam level. Fans of Eloisa James will not be disappointed.