Outlaw Princess of Sherwood by Nancy Springer

Rating: WARTY!

Read quite charmingly by Emily Gray, this very short novel from an author I intend to avoid like the plague from now on, was awful, and the writing did no justice to the reader's game voice. It was vacuous and frivolous, and downright stupid and offered nothing whatsoever to anyone with an ounce of integrity.

The absurd plot was not in having a fictional character named Rowan Hood, the daughter, supposedly, of Robin Hood, which might have made for a good story (maybe the previous volume was better), but in attaching to her a princess of an absurdly named king of an even more absurdly named kingdom, neither of which ever actually existed, and have that princess fart around in Sherwood Forest mooning over the fact that her mom the queen was being held hostage by her dad the king in a cage(!) out in the forest, guarded by three rings of armed men, in some sort of brain-addled attempt to get their daughter back.

Rather than "man" up and turn herself in, the daughter fretted for day after day about how her mom was suffering, and then cooked up this ridiculous plan to kidnap the king and hold him to ransom - the ransom being her mom's freedom. Seriously?

These people were outlaws for goodness sake! Robin Hood was also around to rescue them, so gone was any hope of a couple of strong female characters. All they had to do was sneak up in the night, shoot arrows through everyone except her mom, and they were done! But no, let's fret and whine, and pick daisies, and worry about our clothes, and fret and whine some more. This novel was beyond ludicrous and headed deep into plaid. It ought to have been put into a cage, dragged through the forest, and dropped into the ocean instead of getting published!

The Case of the Left-handed Lady by Nancy Springer

Rating: WARTY!

This is the first of two negative reviews of novels by Nancy Springer. I guess I'm done with pursuing her as an author of interest! The two stories were very different, and whereas the other didn't grab me at all, I found this one rather engaging for the first half of the novel (which is quite short). It's an audio book which is read acceptably although not particularly inspired by Katherine Kellgren, and it's about Sherlock Holmes's younger sister, who of course didn't exist according to the Canon of Conan the Anti-Barbarian. Out of keeping with Doyle's style, this one is told in first person which is far from my favorite PoV and rather spoiled the story in the long run. Why the author chose to go this route is a mystery, but it was a capital mistake! For the most part, I managed to put that aside without becoming nauseated by it, but there were times when I was shaking my head and wishing the author had been smart enough to write in third person.

Enola Holmes is only fourteen, and having been given access to some money by her mother, she ran away from home and established herself as a private detective or a perditorian, as she calls it - a finder of the lost in London. She's rather surprised to be visited one day by Doctor John Watson, who has never met Enola, and who engages her to find herself - and her mother, who is also apparently missing. Enola is posing as Ivy Meshol (that last name being an anagram of Holmes - Enola isn't very inventive or very smart). Ivy is purportedly the secretary of the renowned perditorian Doctor Ragostan, who of course doesn't exist, thereby leaving "Ivy" free to take on any case under his name and investigate it herself.

Enola pursues her calling in much the elementary way as Sherlock does, employing disguises and making deductions, although she isn't anywhere near as sharp as Holmes when the game is afoot. Unfortunately she's given to ruminating idly and pointlessly on her rather slack investigation far too much. Completely unlike Holmes, she obsesses over her clothing to the point where it nauseated me, particularly in the latter half of the novel. Rather than go looking for her mother who (she has a good idea) is off pursuing art and staying with 'gypsies', Enola decides to look into the disappearance of a Duke's daughter which appears superficially to be an elopement, but which upon even modest examination, seems much more like she left of her own accord, but Enola has issues with that explanation even after she's already determined that the daughter evidently has a split personality.

I have to say that this is probably the very last novel I shall read that rips off Arthur Doyle, because that's all this is - cheap and cynical theft of property, even though copyright on this has long expired. I call it theft, because if you're going to have a cousin, or sister, or whatever, of Sherlock Holmes, I think it's beholden upon you to at least offer a respectful nod and a wink to Doyle's style and Holmes's expertise and methods. It's a tragedy of Adlerian proportions if all you're going to do is steal the name to sell your book and offer nothing else, and you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself.

This story had nothing whatsoever to do with Holmes or Doyle, or with the brilliance and insights of either of them. It was just a young adult story which shamelessly abused the name to sell more copies than it would have, had the character been made to stand on her own two feet - something at she would have singularly failed in my opinion. I actively disrecommend this novel.

Human Evolution by Robin Dunbar

Rating: WORTHY!

Errata:
"resting, dosing..." Dozing? I don't know what 'dosing' means int his context! p229
"No species of primate devotes more than 20 per cent of their day to social interaction" - perhaps 'ape' was needed in place of 'primate' since humans are primates?

This was a fascinating glimpse into human evolution and had a lot of material which captured my interest. I don't know if this is all up-to-the-minute material or has a mix of new and old, but I was happy to encounter material I had not seen or heard of before, so this was a good educational experience for me, and well worth the learning. This is a dense book; not scientifically dense in the sense a published science paper, but a lot of information coming down the pipe in short order, so no space is wasted here and it's all good stuff, as they say, packed with science, with references (there are extensive end notes, as well as a bibliography and an index), and with in-place nods to authorities in the various (and diverse) fields this work touches on.

The author pursues a position that I have very little familiarity with, so it was interesting to me to learn of it. Its focus is on time-budgeting: how much of their day early humans, and before them Australopithecines (and before those, apes and monkeys for comparison purposes) needed to devote to resting, foraging, and grooming in order to get the rest, the nutrition, and the social interaction completed in order for their society to function. A lot of this is speculative in relation to ancient societies, in the sense that these things don't lend themselves to fossilization. but there is indirect evidence to support the contentions which are explored here. There's also direct evidence for some facets of this. For example, it's possible to learn from the chemistry of bones whether an individual was stressed or healthy and even what they were eating. What's offered here makes sense in the context of what evidence we do know, and I liked the arguments.

This book was clearly written, and it placed early humans and Australopithecines in an easily grasped context which certainly clarified things for me. I was interested to learn more about just how transitional H. habilis was, and I was also interested to learn more about Neanderthals. I've never viewed them as the bumbling hunched-over people of the historical view, so my quandary has always been just how much like us they were, and I read arguments here that offered some interesting and surprising differences.

There were also some novel (to me) cases made from topics which you don't normally read about in books of this nature such as, how important are things like laughter, singing, and religion, things we take for granted and spare little thought for, in sculpting the kinds of societies in which these individuals existed - or could exist? Laughter is offered as an interesting and viable substitute for grooming in societies who had so many members that a decent amount of physical grooming could not have been indulged-in to cement such numbers together given time constraints on their day. With grooming, we're told that only one of the grooming pair benefits (but perhaps these people sat around in a grooming circle, each grooming the one in front?!), whereas with singing and laughter, more than one recipient benefits, thereby cutting down on how much time was required. I think more study is required, but these seem intelligent arguments to me.

One which I found intriguing is the position that, in modern societies, it seems that three is the size limit for shared laughter in the form of amusing stories or telling jokes, and this may well be true in a modern society where there are so many distractions, and so many topics to talk about. Neanderthals, after all, had no cell phones and played very few professional sports I imagine! I have to wonder if, in a primitive society, we really need to revise our estimates of this nature? Even in modern societies, many more than three people can share a joke if they're attending a performance by a comedian, for example. Not that I'm suggesting that archaic humans had comedy clubs, but they did have camp fire gatherings, so I was rather leery of too much comparison with modern human society.

It would have been nice had this been explored more, and perhaps in scientific circles it has and it would have bulked-up the book too much to go into a deep discussion of it, so my speculations may be immaterial, but this was not the only area where I would have liked to have known more. Another of these was with regard to burials. We can only speculate about the elaborate burials of some individuals that have been exhumed: bodies buried with lots of personal artifacts, rich clothing, tools, weapons and other artifacts. This has been used as an argument for religion, and it is persuasive, but nowhere have I seen another argument set forth, which is that these burials were simply an attempt by friends or relatives to express their love, respect, and sense of loss for those who died. The revelation that an ochre-packed extraneous human femur was found in one grave tends to suggest that not everyone was buried with reverence! I mean, if all of the dead were so decently buried and decorated because of religious belief in an afterlife, then how did this one individual end up being employed as a repository in the burial of two children? Could these people not have been accorded a respectful and loving burial without any thoughts of an afterlife entering into it? It seems possible to me, but then I'm no expert on these topics!

I loved the non-nonsense science which puts creationists in their place anytime, anywhere. One thing which rang throughout this book was that there was a plethora hominins and hominids, which show a continual transition from apes to modern humans This is indisputable. What is harder to nail down are less physically evidenced things such as the arrival of speech and whether Neanderthals had it. here, scientific evidence can still be employed, but it's not quite as cut and dried as are other aspects of evolution. I enjoyed this discussion immensely - it was clear, to the point, and well supported, as was the discussion on friendship and the differences between men and women in this regard. It seems there are six potential requirements for a real friendship to form, any three of which can cause a level of bonding: language, place of origin, similar education, shared interests/hobbies, world view, sense of humor. These things are worth knowing for those of us who are interested in writing novels and imbuing them with realism!

Overall, I enjoyed this immensely. I appreciated the well-referenced, clearly argued text, and the wealth of good and fresh (at least fresh to me!) ideas. This book was very engaging - more so than I had feared it might be!) and kept my interest throughout. I'm grateful to the author and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance review copy, in return for which I offer this honest review.

The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade

Rating: WORTHY!

Obviously rooted in the 1831 Victor Hugo novel, Notre-Dame de Paris ('Our Lady of Paris', and not 'Le Bossu de Notre-Dame' which would be a literal translation of the English title!) this one takes the idea into a fantasy world, where the 'hunchback', here called Modo, has the ability to change his appearance, but it's at some serious cost to his personal comfort. In this, the first of a series, Modo is a precocious, intelligent, and sensitive child who is raised from a very early age by the "mysterious Mr Socrates", who wants to recruit him to the British empire as a spy. Yes, I said it was fantasy. It sounded weird enough to tempt me anyway, even though it's really aimed at middle-grade readers, or perhaps the younger end of the YA age-range.

It started out well and held my interest for the first two-thirds, but I have to confess my enthusiasm waned somewhat towards the end. I really liked that Modo was not presented as a studly guy, or as someone to feel sorry for, nor was he given a magical cure for his maladies. He remained the same hunch-backed, stooped, odd-eyed character throughout, although he employed his shape-shifting abilities for his spy work, and later out of vanity when he met Olivia.

Olivia was another employee of Mr Socrates, and another reason why I liked this. Neither of the two main characters was shown as needing help or validation from the other. neither she nor Modo knew about the other until they met and it was some time after this that they realized they were on the same side, whereupon they began working together without need of direction, and succeeded admirably in the end, although their journey was perilous.

I recommend this story particularly for the appropriate age range(s). It's full of self-sufficiency, adventure, mystery, gadgets, mechanical beasts, and fun. As the name Modo suggests, he is far from a quasi-hero and is, instead, a really worthwhile character with a realistic view of the world. Olivia is a charmer, and I recommend this story.

Sawbones by Melissa Lenhardt

Rating: WARTY!

Errata:
"She came to sit by the bed of a dying man despite her own infirmary." ("infirmity" was needed here. The guy was already in the infirmary!)
"Is so, you give them too much credit." ("If so" was needed here)
"I hear a great many things people do not intend me to her." (intend me to "hear" was needed)

Sawbones is perhaps not surprisingly, a common title. Don't confuse this one with Sawbones by Lawrence BoarerPitchford, which has some similarities, or Sawbones by Catherine Johnson which is a rather different kind of story, but set in a similar period, or with Sawbones by Stuart MacBride, which is a completely different kind of story. Frankly, given the way the main character is treated, and in rather graphic detail, the title for this one perhaps should have been Sabines!

Set in the early 1870's (as near as I can gauge), this tells the story of Catherine Bennett, a prideful and prejudiced medical doctor who had a modest but thriving practice in New York City until she was made (by the victim's wife) the scapegoat in a murder. Fearful that she will not get a fair trial given the wife's powerful connections, she takes a rather cowardly way out and flees to Texas posing as one Laura Elliston, and making her way via Austin to a wagon train heading out to a newly-founded town in Colorado.

She never makes it out of Texas. After a savage attack by Kiowa or Comanche (it's unclear), she finds herself the sole survivor and also in charge of a wounded cavalry officer who came with his men belatedly to the rescue of the wagon train. It's rather sickeningly obvious from this point on that she has her love interest. That was one of my problems with this novel: events are telegraphed so far in advance that it's no surprise what happens to her and therefore no spoiler to give it away.

Another issue was that it's in first person which is the weakest and most irritating voice in which to write a novel, and it's completely unrealistic in this case given what brutality the author forces on this woman at the hands of men. It's simply not credible that she could tell this story the way she does. Initially, it made sense what happened to her, given her gender and the period in which she lived, and I was appreciating that this was a strong woman and looking forward to learning about her, but that rapidly fell apart after she ran away from the crime she never committed. From that point on she became not stronger, but weaker and more stupid, and the sorry plaything of a cavalry Lieutenant, subsuming her entire self to him.

Her protestations of moving on alone in her desire to be a doctor were so vacuous, especially given that you knew they were never going to happen, that I felt I was reading a young adult novel at this point. I'd have actually enjoyed the story if she had gone on alone, but we have to have all of our women validated by a guy in these tales don't we, otherwise how can she be a real woman? Her credentials as a doctor were called into question when she kept rambling on about "...trying to staunch the flow of blood" when she really meant "stanch," which is something that young adult writers of today do not know, but which a doctor would have known back then.

The male interest is Lieutenant Kindle, presumably because you could read him like an open book. He ought to have been named Lieutenant Nook (as in nookie) given his overbearing and single-mindedly physical approach to her. At one juncture, she outright tells him 'No!' (in one form or another) on four separate occasions and still he will not leave her alone. The fact that she was partly drunk and emotionally compromised offered no barrier to this guy whose name, we're told, is William, but which ought to be Dick. He sickened me with his non-stop pressing of himself upon her.

Having saved his life, you'd think this would have made him offer some respect, or show some deference, but instead he seems to have fallen victim to some early form of Stockholm Syndrome and he stalks her until 'she can't refuse him anymore', and has his way with her. The relationship at this point had become so co-dependent that it turned my stomach and I almost quit reading. But they get it on in a library, so I guess this made it okay for him to become a tenant of her Wildfell Hall. When they discuss "Laura's" previous sexcapade, Kindle actually has the hypocrisy to say, "He took advantage of you."! I am not making this up. But "Laura" is a hypocrite too. After repeatedly dissing and dismissing men, she says, “I refuse to believe men do the things they do for no reason other than they can.” Why would she say that when she's made is quite clear that she thinks they're the lowest of the low anyway?

Yes, this is the book "Laura" was reading, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and I had to question this. The novel came out in 1848, so it seems highly unlikely that it would have found its way into a library in a remote (and new) Texas fort by 1870 or so. Who knows? Maybe it's possible. This is fiction after all, but I found it even harder to believe that the "reading room" at this remote fort would have been so well-stocked with books that "All available wall space was taken up by floor-to-ceiling shelves overflowing with books." While the US was quite literate (if you were white) by the 1870's, it beggars belief that a library in a remote fort in The South would be so well stocked, especially so soon after a (not so) civil war.

Purely because of her work on saving Kindle's life, "Laura" is made the acting head physician at Fort Richardson in North Texas, where Nook, er Kindle, is based. This is definitely not where she imagined her life would take her, and especially not into his own house where she lodges upstairs on the pretense that he's more safely out of the way of infection in his own room than he is in the hospital, and she can take care of him. The hell with the rest of the patients! How bizarre is that? What about their risk of infection?

Bizarre is how this novel struck me, time after time. At one point "Laura" visits the bakery in town "...where a fat woman was setting out loaves of warm bread." What? Yes, you read it right. Why was it necessary to describe this woman as fat? Well this was a first person PoV, so we can take this as "Laura's" bigoted attitude to everything and everyone, but all this served to do was to make me dislike her more. Another problem I had was with her blind hatred of American Indians. In a way, it was understandable that she should have some PTSD from her experience, but her hatred was so rife and raised so often, it became quickly obvious that the next thing which would happen would be that she has an interaction directly with the Indians, and that it would not be a pleasant one.

This marked the second point at which I felt I really needed to ditch this novel. It was only, it seemed, the unintentional humor which was what kept me going at this point. For example, "Laura" thinks this of the overly amorous Kindle: "It'll give you the big head." I'm sure what he was doing to her did give him a big head, but I really didn't need to know that! Obviously she didn't mean it that way, but this phrase was just so in the wrong place.

"Laura" simply doesn't seem to understand men. She repeatedly downgrades men to nothing save vain idiots, then she falls for Kindle! What's worse than this though, is that at one point she thinks this of another army officer: " It beggared belief Wallace Strong would prefer an ignorant dreamer like Ruth to a strong, intelligent woman like Alice." Why would she think this given how often we learn of her opinion that the men around her are exactly that shallow? It made no sense for her to have this opinion given everything else she's expressed about men, who were evidently only one step above 'them dad-blamed redskins' to hear her talk and think.

She isn't very smart either. She repeatedly fails to appreciate how precarious her position is even when someone other than Kindle is obviously stalking her. This is another episode of telegraphing exactly what's going on, but it takes "Laura" forever to figure it out. I'm usually bad at this, but even I figured out exactly who this guy was long before she did.

Our doctor isn't above slut-shaming either. Of a prostitute, she thought this: "She would lay with multiple men out of wedlock but she would not swear on the Bible. It always amazed me where people drew their moral line in the sand," and this was from a woman who wanted to be treated like a man, yet who has no problem being subsumed as " Mrs William Kindle" when discussing marriage, and who herself has already had one lover 'out of wedlock' and is about to take another? I simply did not get her character at all. It seemed like the more I read, the further she strayed from the woman she appeared to be when the novel began, and none of this straying was into interesting, engaging, or even pleasant territory.

The oddities kept on coming. At one point Kindle is teaching Laura to shoot, a sadly clichéd way for a writer to get her main male character up close and personal with her main female, but the issue here that I found interesting was the plethora of bottles which were available in the middle of nowhere for her target practice! We're told the soldiers out on this patrol are allowed a tot of whisky each day, so no doubt some bottles came from there, but unless they're getting drunk each night, I doubt there would be crates of bottles for her to shoot up. Maybe they actually were getting drunk each night. This would certainly account for their poor performance during what happened later. It would not account for how you can tie someone to a horse when you "...rode through the night without stopping." Those Indians certainly do have powerful medicine!

At this point I did quit reading. There wasn't much left to read, but to be honest I could not bear the thought of reading any more. I wish the author the best of luck, but I cannot recommend a novel like this one.

The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson

Rating: WORTHY!

I really like this novel, and I loved the ending, sad as it was in many ways, but it did take a while to get through. I think some editing would have improved things, but that said, I consider this to be a worthy read as is. It had a really strong central female character which is always a winner with me. She had her moments of weakness, and she won through in the end, but I am not convinced she really learned anything, which was a bit of a downer for me.

I have to say that one thing I am not fond of in books is chapter quotes - where the author begins a chapter or a section with some quote from some bygone writer, typically some poet I never heard of. I really don't care who it is or what it is because it's so predictably boring and meaningless. I know these things must mean something to the author (at least I would hope they do otherwise it's just pretension, isn't it?), but it's an imposition to assume they will resonate with a reader who has picked up the book to read the author's work, not random quotes from a bunch of other authors!

I skip these with the same diligence which I bring to skipping prologues, introductions, prefaces, and epilogues. The silliness of these quotes was highlighted for me by the attribution to one, which read, 'WILFRED OWEN (1893–1918), “1914” (published 1920)' All those numbers! I laughed out loud at the sheer absurdity of it and I still didn't read the quote, but I sure appreciated the laugh! As it happened, this novel did have an epilogue, and I skipped it. If it's worth saying, it's worth putting into a chapter. If you think it's worth no more than tacking it to the end like Post-it® note, then I'm certainly not going to imagine it's worth reading.

Fortunately for my rating, and despite all this silliness, the novel turned out to be very engaging and well-written (finally I find an author who knows the difference between staunch and stanch - but unfortunately not the difference between a Union Jack and a Union flag!). There was also an instance of "to watch the cortège pass" appearing twice in succession.

he main character, Beatrice Nash is trying to make her own way in the world after the death of her scholarly father, but she's being hampered by the severe constraints put upon women in 1914, and by the fact that an aunt is in charge of her money. This seemed to me to be a bit of a contradiction: that on the one hand, we're to believe that Beatrice has no say in her financial affairs because she's a woman, but her money is controlled by a woman who has every say in those affairs? Why her father did this to her is never explained.

Author Helen Simonsen is an ex-pat Brit (and I'd almost - almost - be willing to bet she still has her charming Sussex accent) who evidently has been out of the country a bit too long to remember all her British-isms (such as how to spell 'manoeuvrings'!), but for the most part she did a great job imbuing this with True Brit™. It felt very English, except for the odd bit here and there where I read, for example, "I am as dizzy as if the champagne was already flowing.” instead of "I am as dizzy as if the champagne were already flowing" which is what an educated Brit would have said back then. In fact the real war here was the rigid class system, not what was going on in Europe. In that regard, the title is misleading because this novel is about The Summer Before the War and the first winter of the war almost through to the following spring. But using that for a title would have been absurd!

I was a little bit slow getting into it, but very quickly it caught my imagination like a fresh wind in the sails of a yacht, and soon I was racing along. As the title indicates, it begins in the summer before the start of World War One, the so-called "Great War" and otherwise known as "the war to end all wars." Sha, right!

Beatrice made a real impression that stayed with me even after the novel was over. Hampered by the severe constraints put upon women in Edwardian times, and more acutely by the fact that an aunt who disapproves of her refusal to marry is in charge of her money, Beatrice nevertheless managed to secure for herself a job teaching Latin at a school in Rye, Sussex, yet she still she feels the pinch of her circumstances. Of course she's a lot better off than many others, enjoying the somewhat privileged station she does. It bothered me that she never seems to fully appreciate how lucky she was despite her life being put quickly into perspective as refugees from Belgium, which has been invaded by Germans, are brought into town to be housed, and the town, along with the rest of Britain, begins gearing up for a war they've never seen the like of before.

Navigating extreme genderism (by our standards - normal for those times), local politics, petty rivalries, and men who would seek by turns, to take advantage of her and relegate her to a position little better than the servants in the employ of the wealthy local families she encounters, Beatrice tries to stay mindful of those who are less privileged, particularly the Roma kid, Snout, whom she tries to help despite the opposition to him being even greater than it is to her, and her 'ward' Celeste, a refugee of whom she seems a bit neglectful at times, quite frankly. She never really gets there in the wising-up stakes, and ends up with an easy out.

It was not easy to like anyone in this story! I managed it with Beatrice, Celeste, and Hugh, but that was about it. The rest I pretty much wanted to slap the nobility off their privileged faces. Their conduct was disgusting to the point of laughable, but there is no doubt that it was how these people behaved and how all too many of them still behave. I have no time for royalty or for so-called nobility.

I did like the way the characters were moved around by the author, and the petty rivalries being disclosed like a body parts in a fan dance. I was a bit sad there was not more about Celeste. I think she merits a novel to herself, but she does have her moments and I enjoyed them. I think she was my favorite character although I didn't quite get how the tide turned as easily for her as it had originally against her. That seemed a bit too convenient, but I'll take that ending for Celeste! Beatrice never stopped trying to make her way with dignity and to empathize with others, and this steadfast approach to her life is what kept me on her side, despite her failings. Overall I liked the novel and even got a bit choked by the ending, so I consider this a winner and I recommend it.

A Mad, Wicked Folly by Sharon Biggs Waller

Rating: WORTHY!

This was a delightful story, well told, and very engrossing, of Victoria Darling, and her fight for independence from her overbearing father, and it takes place alongside the suffragette movement in London, in Edwardian 1909. We meet Victoria as she's about to be sent down from her French finishing school for posing nude for her extra curricular artist's group. It was an unplanned exhibition on her part, but it gets her sent home in disgrace. Her parents are outraged, including her mother, who was also a budding artist in her own youth, but Victoria isn't about to give up so easily.

A marriage, which, it is hoped, will encourage her to grow up and settle down, is arranged for her to the son of another nouveau riche family, but Victoria, through her growing ties with the suffragettes, has become involved - or however you care to characterize it - with a police officer named Will. As her wedding draws ever closer, she also draws closer to Will.

I grew to like Victoria, although sometimes she wasn't so smart. Will was a bit of a generic YA male portrait, with little going for him other than his picturesque value, and it's entirely predictable what will happen in the end. I had hoped for more in that department because the ending was a bit too convenient and sappy, but overall, Victoria's story more than made-up for the encroaching trope, and I grew increasingly to like her as I read ever more about her.

One issue I had was that Victoria didn't sound very high class! Yes, her father was a self-made man having built-up his own toilet business (he was flush with money! LOL!), but his daughter had been to the best schools, including the one in France. Her use of language didn't seem to quite reflect her upbringing.

Part of the problem was from Katharine McEwan's reading. For the most part she did a good job, but her American accent sounds Irish, and Victoria's voice sounded a bit too 'riff-raff' for someone of her breeding! her French pronunciation needs work too! She cannot say Étienne, making it sound more like ATM than ever it does a French name! Those were minor problems though, and I overlooked them because I enjoyed Victoria's story so much. I recommend this one.

The Crystal Skull by Manda Scott

Rating: WARTY!

Well I guess I'm done with Manda Scott as an author of interest! This is the second I've tried of hers and it was a non-starter - or more accurately, it was a great starter, but rapidly fell apart. Reader Susan Duerden's voice wasn't bad, but neither was it wonderful. It was okay.

Not to be confused with Crystal Skull by Rob Macgregor, this story had a wonderful premise which was sadly squandered, but what lost it for me was when the book started flashing back to Elizabethan times and modern times got boring. I lost all interest. In a print book, and somewhat in an ebook, you can skip parts you don't like and get to the next good bit, but it's really hard to do that in an audio book!

The story was of two young newly-weds, Stella and Kit, whose wedding gift to each other was to explore one of the limestone caves in Yorkshire, England (which is where my parents were born! Not in a cave, silly, in Yorkshire!). They were the first to enter this one particular cavern in over four hundred years (hence the Elizabethiana), and just as this one obscure legend had it, they discovered the heartstone, which appeared to have mystical powers. Either that or Stella seriously needed a brain scan to detect that tumor she certainly has growing in her skull.

Of course it's not that easy. The authorities don't care of course, that someone who values life very little wants to take that stone from them, either to own it or to destroy it, yet instead of turning the stone and the location of the cavern over to appropriate authorities, these two complete dicks start squirreling it away. Stella lies, even to her husband, that she's disposed of it. I stopped liking them both at that point. They are irresponsible jerks and I lost all interest in reading any more about them. If they'd had good reason to do as they did, that would be one thing, but the author gives us no reason other than selfishness and stupidity for them to hold onto the stone and keep the cave secret, and that never makes for a fun story in my experience. The monotonous flashbacks to that delusional charlatan Michele de Notredame and the wa-ay overrated John Dee were trite and laughable, worthy of an amateur writer, not a professional. I can't recommend this based on what I listened to.

The Kite Rider by Geraldine McCaughrean

Rating: WARTY!

I reviewed this author's The Death Defying Pepper Roux this month and really liked it, so I was curious to see how a second novel by this same writer would turn out, and this was just the opposite. Again I have to offer kudos for setting the story outside her comfort zone (as defined in this case by a British author writing a novel set in China). We see far too little of that, especially in young adult novels, but the problem here, for me, was that the novel really delivered nothing to hold my interest. I kept finding my mind wandering onto other things rather than saying focused on the story (it was an audiobook fyi), and that is never a good sign!

I made it a third the way through, but couldn't sustain interest in some kid who decided that being lofted on a kite was a good career move! What won me over in the previous story was the humor. There was none here, and I really missed it. I can't recommend this based on the portion of it I heard. The reading was okay by a mixed cast, some of whom actually sounded Chinese, but no amount of feeling injected into a novel is going to make it listenable if the story doesn't grab you.

The Death-Defying Pepper Roux by Geraldine McCaughrean

Rating: WORTHY!

Finally I get to post one review out of this set that was a really decent read - or in this case a 'listen' because it was an audio book from my ever praiseworthy local library. The novel is praiseworthy too, in that it's funny (laugh out loud funny at times, although it falls off a lot in the last third, be warned), and it's set in France, which is different at least, even though it's written by an English author. It's nice to read a story not set in the US or the UK for a change! It's also the kind of novel which makes me want to read more by the same author, which is always a good thing. I am particularly interested to see what she did with Peter Pan - she was commissioned to write a sequel to it! Note that McCaughrean is pronounced Muh-Cork-Ran

The story here (or there, since it's set in historical times rather than modern day) is that Pepper Roux thinks he's going to die and runs away from it. Why 'Pepper' rather than the French word for Pepper, which is 'Poivre' is a bit of a mystery. Poivre does appear to get a mention here and there, but with this being an audio book, I cannot be sure. I initially thought the reader was saying 'pauvre', which is French for 'poor' as in 'sorry-assed', and it may well be that he was. I wasn't sure. The reader was Anton Lesser. As far as I know, he's no relation to Kenneth Moore. Or Ronald Biggs. Or the old British comedy team of Little and Large. Given his name, he might be related to Daphne du Maurier, which is French for "More bay tree!" Actually I just made all of that up. I don't know more about Lesser except that the did a really good job reading this novel.

Pepper is told by an aunt that he will die on his fourteenth birthday, so he's at a really loose end. He goes to see his father, who is holed up in un hôtel, drunk, and so Pepper takes his hat and coat, dons them, and boards his father's ship in his dad;s stead, setting sail with the crew as their captain. Yes, the story is ridiculous and improbable, but it's told in such a way that it really seems like this might have happened. What Roux doesn't know is that the crew has been paid to scuttle the ship for insurance money!

This is only the beginning of a series of equally improbably, but highly believable adventures, each as amusing as the next. The story rolled on in this fashion in high style until the last third, and particularly the last sixth, where it became mired in self-justification and exposition. I think it would have been better as a shorter story with no conclusion, but with Pepper simply heading off into the sunset on his next adventure instead of explaining everything. That didn't work for me. But given how much I had enjoyed this story for the first two-thirds, I am very happy to rate it as a very worthy read.

Dreaming the Eagle by Manda Scott

Rating: WARTY!

Not to be confused with William Johnstone's Dreams of Eagles!

I could not get into this book at all, so I don't know how much value this will be - it's not so much a review as an opinion about writing! After I realized I was never going to read this, which was shortly after I began reading it, I went out to look at some reviews of people I follow, and others, and I quickly realized my initial impressions were right. I wasn't going to like this, and since it's almost five hundred pages, I also wasn't going to read this when there is so much else out there which is not only just begging to be read, but which is also willing to offer me a square deal as a reader. I do have an audio book by this author on a different topic, so I will revisit her and see if she can engage me with that.

I was interested in this because it's about Boudicca (change the 'u' to an 'a', and the second 'c' to an 'e' - easily done when writing by hand - and you have 'Boadicea') who has long been of interest to me because I don't think any writer has depicted her as anything other than a gallant 'warrior woman', when really she was nothing more than a terrorist. She may have felt good reason to lay waste to several cities, but the bottom line is that she simply went on a rampage because the Romans pissed her off, and she mercilessly slaughtered literally thousands of men, women, and children for no reason (like there ever is a reason other than insanity for such actions), including thousands of her fellow Britons. She probably wiped out more Britons than ever she did Romans. Se was such a poor warrior that an inferior, but well-organized force of Romans wiped out her hoard of barbarians, and brought peace back to a country which she had thrown into terror and turmoil by her intemperate and precipitate actions.

The name, Boudica, is mentioned only five times in this entire book! She has been known by many names, but the one used here is one I've never encountered before: Breaca? Whence that came I have no idea, but it appears (as Breaca nic Graine) only in this novel to my knowledge, and when I began reading this, I started to think this was not about Boudicca, but about her ancestors, and she wouldn't show up until volume two, until I realized that Breaca was in fact Boudicca. Yes, this is a series, and I am not a fan of series, which was another good reason to abandon this before it gets any worse.

If the first volume is so unappealing, I sure am not interested in reading another three five-hundred page (or whatever) novels after this one! And this volume was so diffuse and wandering and ethereal that it was entirely unappealing to me. Plus it's complete fiction of course, with very little history. Admittedly facts are hard to come by in this case, but we do know of the life these people led, to some extent, and I saw very little of it here, the author preferring to meander off into occultism and dreaming. We could have been reading about American Indians instead of the Iceni people.

I really don't get what it is about historical fiction writers that drives them to produce massive tomes and then sequels to those massive tomes. Of course it's very lucrative, isn't it, if you can suck (or sucker) your readers in and addict them to endless derivative volumes? Publishers love authors who do that. As for me, I prefer authors who write for their readers, and not so much their bank balance, and I think this author would have served her readers better with one volume, cutting out all the extraneous ethereal nonsense and focused on the known facts.

The problem of course with that, is that the facts are few when it comes to Boudicca. Almost nothing is known about her other than her crazed rampage. It's not even known how she died or where her final battle was (although one possible site is quite close to where I grew up, amusingly enough!). There is a rumor that she's buried on platform 9¾! I am not kidding. I wonder if this is why Rowling chose that location for her Potter series, because one rumor has it that Boudicca is buried between platforms nine and ten at what is now King's Cross station in London. This burial is doubtful, though!

We know nothing about her before and after the rampage. Her real name? Boudicca means the same as Victoria - victory. It probably was no more her real name than is Breaca nic Graine! The names of her daughters? Unknown, although there are wild guesses at them. Where she died? Unknown, Where she's buried? Unknown. My guess is that she died at what's known as the Battle of Watling Street, and was left along with the thousands of other corpses to rot. Find the battle site, you'll find her. It's possible that her surviving supporters returned later and buried her, but the chances are that those who knew her died with her and no one else would know her well enough to recognize her body.

So based on what I saw of this novel and the portion I read, I can't recommend it. You'll have to read someone else's review to get a better overview of this one than I can offer though.

The Black Magic Series Starter by Dennis Wheatley

Rating: WORTHY!

This is a collection of three full-length novels by Dennis Wheatley, who was a phenomenally successful writer in Britain from the 1930s to the 60's. For me, The Devil Rides Out was his best work, but the other two in this collection are also excellent reads if you're interested in the subject matter. I devoured these as a teen. Viewed as historical fiction, they hold up well, but there are some caveats.

The Devil Rides Out

I reviewed The Devil Rides Out back in January 2014 as part of a different Wheatley collection, but this one contains the same story so I will just refer you to that review for details. The basic story, set in the 1930s, consists of a group of close friends who find themselves up against the works of the Devil himself as embodied in his black magician disciple Mocata. Mocata is striving to achieve some devilish ends, and one of the friends, Simon Aaron, has foolishly got himself under the man's sinister influence. The Duc de Richlieu who is the only one of the group who has any magical experience, enters the fight along with Rex Van Ryn, who falls in love with one of the Satanic women who is also a neophyte in the Devil-worshipping group. Friends Richard and Marie-Lou Eaton also join the fray. It's a good old fashioned scary-story smothered in Christian religion mythology. I'm not a believer, but I love a good Satanic magic romp!

Strange Conflict

This is another in the Duc de Richlieu series. In it, the same people from The Devil Rides Out join forces again, to wage a battle, but this time on the astral plane. The story is set in the beginning of World War Two, with the question of how are the Nazis discovering the travel routes of British warships so successfully? Well, a magician is using the astral plane to convey intelligence, and the Duc and his pals array themselves against him. The story is replete with weird and wonderful conflicts in astral form, and also a tour of life in Haiti, with the attendant zombies - not the ridiculous ones of the modern era, but the original zombies - and they are surprising. Be warned that Wheatley is pompous, opinionated, devoutly upper-crust, rather racist, and full of British jingoism made worse by a war mentality, so if you want to enjoy this and his other works, you have to turn a blind eye to those failings. Whether he would have been a more enlightened person today, I do not know. I somehow doubt it.

The Haunting of Toby Jugg

Again set in World War Two, this novel features the improbably-named Toby Jugg, who is about to turn twenty-one and looks towards inheriting his grandfather's business fortune, since his father and mother are both dead and he has no siblings. His only relatives are his uncle, Paul and his aunt, Julia. There is one problem: he seems to be slowly losing his mind. It's not his only problem. Having been shot while flying on an air raid, he's paralyzed from the waist down and needs a nurse to take care of him. That's fine during the day, but it's at night when the nightmares come: visions of horrific creatures slithering and crawling all around him. His new nurse, charmer though she is, doesn't believe him and thinks he's just a spoiled, rich, baby. She doesn't know that his guardian, Helmuth Lisicky, is Satan worshipper who is causing his nightmares.

These stories were entertaining enough for me when I was in my young adult days, I wonder if I might find them so engaging now? If you have never read them, they do contain - aside from the irritating and offending parts, which are not overwhelming - some great occult and black magic story-telling which is untainted by modern custom and trope. It makes for a refreshing read in that regard, at least. I'd recommend these - with the above-mentioned caveats - for a change from modern reading and a different story-telling perspective.

Helen Keller: A Life by Dorothy Herrmann

Rating: WARTY!

I started out liking this biography of the deaf and blind Helen Keller, but as it went on (and on), I started disliking it and gave up about half-way through. The problem wasn't the reader, for a change! Mary Peiffer did a workmanlike - if a bit pedantic - job. The problem was the boring and extensive asides the author insisted upon meandering into just when the actual story I wanted to hear - that of Helen Keller - got interesting.

For example, Helen's closest companion was Annie Sullivan, the controversial woman who brought Helen out of her silent darkness and into the world - almost as a mother births a child - and we hear a lot about Annie here, including the fact that she had a sort of control over Helen's life that only religious cults seem to manage these days. At one point, the author began a chapter talking about the unprecedented event of a deaf and blind woman graduating Radcliffe summa cum laude. Right in the middle of it, she meandered off to talk about Mark Twain, who couldn't be there because he was escorting his wife's coffin back through Italy. Just to mention this would not have been a bad thing. Helen knew Mark Twain, and he had entered the story several times, but instead of merely mentioning it and getting back to the graduation and Helen's story, the author completely subverted her account of the remarkable achievement Helen had managed there, in favor of rambling on in endless detail about Twain.

Whose biography am I reading here?! Now contrast this with the fact that when Annie Sullivan gets married, the entire event gets such short shrift that it may as well not have happened. This was seriously a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment. Get a life, woman - not a death! The author was quite evidently obsessed with Mark Twain. I think she needs a slap upside the head with a langhorn, the little clemens.

This was not the only time she rambled on either, and after a while it really ticked me off. I wanted to hear about Helen, not everyone but Helen. I'd like to visit this remarkable and intriguing person again at some point in the future, but I shall not read another work by Dorothy Herrmann. Next time I'll pick one which Helen Keller wrote herself!

Spoiler alert: Helen dies at the end.

The Demon Girl’s Song by Susan Jane Bigelow

Rating: WORTHY!

This was an excellent novel which I fell in love with quickly and which I highly recommend. The main character is a lesbian who doesn't fully realize it to begin with, but this is not your typical LGBTQ novel. Nether is it an historical romance, although there is romance in it, nor your usual fantasy. If it had been, I probably wouldn't have liked it. It's not a ridiculous YA love triangle of a novel. Thankfully there are no triangles here! It's a novel about a woman who has an adventure, and she doesn't need to be validated in it by male or female. I was so pleased with that! Finally an author who gets it! This woman is my idea of a strong female character done to perfection. That doesn't mean she doesn't have moments of weakness or doubt. It doesn't mean she doesn't need friends or lovers. It means she can take it or leave it and she does just fine on on her own.

The story is set in the early twentieth century it would seem, but it's hard to tell because it's in a parallel world - one of magic and empires, and the world is nicely fleshed out. The main character, Andín is possessed by a demon - accidentally - or maybe not! (It's not remotely like "The Exorcist" as it happens!). This demon isn't outright evil - not in a psychotic fashion like in the Exorcist anyway. He's occupied the rulers of the empire for a thousand years, moving from father to son (or whoever is the heir) as the father dies, and expanding the empire with an iron fist, but now a wizard has tricked him into going into this peasant girl instead of into the emperor's son.

When the demon talks Andín into going to the capital and manages to wangle a meeting with the new emperor, he discovers he's been deliberately tricked by the palace wizard, and he's stuck inside this girl's mind. Even if the girl dies, he can't get back into the ruling family. But now the girl and her demon have been exiled from the entire empire, which meant a train journey of several days to cross the border into a mountain kingdom many miles from the capital. The oddest thing about this however is the weird empty shape they see in the wasteland as they cross the border - maybe it's a portal to somewhere. I have a feeling the girl is going to find out, and also going to meet the woman who sat beside her when the demon first occupied her. Yes, for the demons, it's occupy peasant week. They don't have a wall street, you see!

I loved the main character Andín - in a platonic way of course! She's only seventeen after all, but she's about to go on a life-altering quest, and she isn't the only one who will change. So, too, will the demon. Will she end up more like him, or will he become like her? Or will they meet in the middle? And if so, what then? Well, if this is any clue, here's how she responds to a noise in the night: "She checked around the bed and picked up the little pen she kept on her nightstand. If some strange man were to come at her, she could stab him in the eye with it." Shades of Jason Bourne!

The story is masterfully written! I'd say mistressfully, but that just doesn't sound right unfortunately! How sad is that? It's paced perfectly, relationships grow and change organically, it's very well-written, and the story never once got boring. There was always something new around the corner, and Andín's growth was perfectly reasonable.

On a technical level, and while this novel was well formatted for the Kindle app on my phone, there were a couple of issues with the chapter headers towards the end. It seemed like the intention was to use the possessive, but the titles ended up looking like this instead:
Chapter 20 Judyís Sword
Chapter 23 Shashalnikyaís Trail
Chapter 27 The Demon Girlís Song.

Overall, I couldn't have asked for a better fantasy novel, and I'm not really a fan of fantasy unless it's done really well. This one was. It was understated and nicely depicted. I was very pleased to have been granted a chance to read this advance review copy and I fully recommend it. I look forward to this author's next work. I hope it comes, like this one, with great expedition!

Graphic Classics Romeo and Juliet by Gareth Hinds

Rating: WORTHY!

I found this to be somewhat rudimentary in illustration (and bizarre in parts, and unintentionally amusing in others), but very well done overall. It's a graphic novel based on Shakespeare's famous play, as written by Francis Bacon (yeah right! LOL!). One thing which hit me was that the appearance of the text in speech balloons and descriptive text boxes, really focused my attention on Shakespeare's words - and all the classic lines are here:

• Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
• My only love sprung from my only hate
• That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet
• O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
• But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun
• Parting is such sweet sorrow
• A plague o' both your houses!
• ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man

Despite it being in fair Verona where we lay our scene, there are few Italians on view be warned! The illustrations show largely dark-skinned and moderately dark-skinned people. Juliet is predictably lighter than is Romeo the rebel. Not that Italians can't be dark-skinned of course, but I'd wager they were a lot more scarce than depicted here in the era when this play is set.

Some obscure words were defined at the bottom of the page on which they appeared, but a lot of Shakespeare's wording/meaning also went uncommented, so this struck me as a bit patchy. Fortunately I'm familiar enough with Shakespeare that this was not a problem, but it occurs to me that it might be for people who are approaching this who are new to Shakespeare - the language is not modernized at all.

The story is well-known: Romeo Montague, pining for Rosaline, a niece of Lord Capulet, goes to a party at the house of his mortal enemies, where he meets Juliet Capulet, whose parents want married off to Count Paris. When she meets Romeo, all other priorities are cast from her mind as they are from Romeo's, too, who now has no feelings for Rosaline at all. That's how fickle he is! After knowing each other for five minutes, these two declare their love and plan to marry, despite Juliet being thirteen, and her own father having just talked Paris into waiting for another two years at least. Yes, Romeo and Juliet are morons, but that said, the play makes for a fun read, awash in Shakespeare's cheesy puns.

It goes wrong, of course. Juliet is to take a potion which will give her an affectation of death. When she has been interred in the family vault, the padre will send Romeo to her and the two of them can run away together. Well, Romeo doesn't get the message and the padre is delayed reaching the church. Romeo thinks Juliet is dead and takes a potion he'd had prepared when he first heard of her 'death'. He dies, and When Juliet wakes up, she stabs herself with his dagger. Thus endeth the lesson. I recommend this for anyone who is interested in the Shakespeare lite version of this play.

Oxford Portraits Mary Wollstonecraft: Mother of Women's Rights by Miriam Brody

Rating: WORTHY!

I found this walking through the library in the entrance to the children's section, but this is way too dense and involved for young children - unless they're exceptionally precocious readers. It's more of a late middle-grade to young adult read. It details the life of Mary Wollstonecraft, mother of Mary Shelley, who was a pioneer in women's rights at a time when women were held in Biblical-style ownership, giving up all rights to their husband upon marriage. They had no rights to property, no right to vote, and no money. If they were even lucky enough to get a divorce from a bad husband they were out of home and gave up their children, and probably would have been shunned by their parents, too,. for "bringing disgrace" upon the family name.

Wollstonecraft had an at best unhappy, and at worst miserable childhood. Her father was a drunk who squandered the family fortune. her mother was unsupportive, and it became obvious to Wollstonecraft that she was going to have to make her own way in life - something she had no problem with as it happened. She tried to start a school with her two sisters but realized quickly that while she loved her sisters, she could not stand to be in that close of a proximity to them for very long!

She eventually became known for her writing and became famous after she published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects in 1792, but her life was never destined to be a completely happy one. She traveled in France during the French revolution and "married" Gilbert Imlay - an American. They were never actually married (she had written strongly against it in Vindication), and they were merely posing as married. He treated her poorly and abandoned her when she became pregnant. She raised her daughter Fanny, alone, but had the help of a servant/nurse whom she hired with her earnings

She traveled in Scandinavia and wrote a series of letters which were also published and won her more fans. It was after her return to England after this that she met (actually, re-met!) the man she would finally feel was her true match: William Godwin. Despite the fact that both of them has written treatises which derided marriage, they married and Wollstonecraft became pregnant with the girl who would grow to be Mary Shelley. But she died a few days after giving birth to Mary at the sadly youthful age of thirty eight.

This biography gives plenty of detail and commentary, and it pulls no punches. It's well researched and includes quotes from letters both written by Wollstonecraft, and written about her. I loved it and recommend it for both adults and young readers - but not too young!

The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner

Rating: WORTHY!

This audio book was a major disappointment. It began well and really drew me in quickly, but around halfway, when it ought to have been picking up speed for the David and Goliath-style grand finale, it just fizzled away into tedium and nonsense and became insufferable. I gave up on it. I have to say I would not have listened for as long as I did were it not for the excellent and talented reading voice of Carrington MacDuffie. Kudos to her!

This is book one in a series and I have no interest in listening to any more. I have no idea why it would even become a series, either, for that matter, but as I said, I did not finish it, so maybe there's something there at the end which gives some sort of reason for the book to go on to a second volume, however weak. I don't care what it is!

Here's one problem with audio books. If a word is unfamiliar to the listener - and this especially applies to names! - or if the word sounds like one you know but is actually a different word, there's no way to tell what word was used or how it was spelled, so I am relying on some research in Google books for the spelling of the character's names. Set in the period of the early days of the French revolution, this novel begins with a small troupe of entertainers being invited to the house of Marquis de Villeduval for a well-paid private performance. Yann Margoza, one of the three in the troupe, counsels against going, but the leader, Topolain insists upon it. He is signing his own death warrant by doing so, because also in attendance is and Count Kalliovski, who shoots Topolain dead by "accident" during his performance of his "bullet proof routine

This is the first thing which ticked me off about the story: I never did learn what it was between Kalliovski and Topolain which led to this. It may be that it was covered in the part I skipped, but I listened to a lot of this and it never came up. Either that or I was so focused on driving at the time it was revealed, that I missed it! Maybe the author kept this for volume two which would have ticked me off even more!

Topolain's death leaves Yann and the dwarf member of the troupe, Têtu (which is actually the French word for 'stubborn') running for their lives because evidently - again, I know not why - the Count is out for them too, and they'll be out for the count if they don't get away. Somehow, out of this, it winds up that Yann, who has started falling for the Marquis's daughter, Sido, ends up going to England. I have no explanation for how this happened. I'd been seeing this woman's name as Çideaux or Sideaux. Maybe Sido is short for Sidonie or maybe it's short for Do-si-do! I don't know!

The count has been loaning large sums of money to the marquis, but he knows he's not going to get it back. What he wants instead is Sido's dowry and eventually he forces the marquis to effectively sell her off in marriage, whereupon he will kill her and keep her fortune. Back then, women were essentially property. In some parts of the world this hasn't changed even today. They had no rights, no vote, no say, and could own nothing. Sido was money int he bank to the trope evil count, and nothing else.

The second thing which ticked me off was that the count is all set to marry Sido, and then suddenly two years are gone and we're with Yann in England. When we get back to France, Sido still isn't married! This made no sense to me, and again no reason was given for it - not in the part I listened to. It was at this point that the quality of the story began a rapid decline, and I lost all interest in it, so I can't speak for what happened after that. I can't recommend this base don my experience of it, despite the MacDuffie voice!

Paper Girls Vol 1 Brian K Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson

Rating: WORTHY!

Well this was a fun romp and definitely something I'd like to continue reading. It proves you can write a story with the word 'paper' in the title and not make a complete johngreen of yourself. I can't say much about the art because this was an advance review copy and it looked like the artwork had been 'de-rezzed' to make the file size smaller. This made for quick page turning, but it was hard to see exactly how the final art will look. In very general terms, it looked fine, though. It was reminiscent of older comics, not in the fact that it was pointillist (it wasn't, thankfully!), but in the general style, and this was fine because this was set in the late eighties, and there are a lot of eighties references, be warned.

It has four intriguing, amusing, and interesting female teens all of whom deliver newspapers in the neighborhood. Three of them hang out together and the fourth joins them and gets to know them over the course of the early morning delivery, but there's a heck of a lot more going on here than delivering papers.

It's the morning after Halloween, so there are some costumed people still around (although why they would still be around at that hour of the morning is a bit of a mystery). The girls have a run-in with some of them - in fact that's how they all meet - and then they split-up to finish their rounds quickly. This is when trouble starts as one pair contacts the other pair over a walkie-talkie (no cell phones back then, remember!), and when they meet up, it turns out some weird dudes in ninja costumes have stolen their other walkie-talkie.

The feistiest of the girls, Mackenzie, aka Mac, vows to take it back. Tiffany and KJ are on-board immediately, and the new girl, Erin, follows along. They end up in a basement where there is a machine which Mac erroneously compares with an Apollo space capsule. It's actually more like a Mercury capsule, but she doesn't know enough to know that. Some sort of power or force comes out of the capsule and the girls immediately beat a retreat.

Here's where it goes to hell. Now there are pterosaurs flying around, which I note some reviewers misidentified as dinosaurs. They're not. They were no more dinosaurs than the aquatic reptiles from that era were dinosaurs). The thing is that these pterosaurs were carrying armored "pilots" who seemed to be zapping everyone they found with sticks reminiscent of the weapons from the Stargate movie. With so many disappearing, people think it's the rapture! The new guys in the armor seem to be at war with the ninja dudes and the girls are, in the words of Stealers Wheel, "Stuck in the middle with news." (That might not be what they sang!).

And that's all the spoilers you're going to get! Yeah, I know, I'm a mean old cuss, but I loved this story! There's feistiness, weirdness, time-travel, maybe parallel worlds, and it all starts with some girls delivering newspapers. I love that it's so different and, within context, believable. These girls don't do out of character stuff, and they don't act completely at random. They're totally believable in everything they do and say, and the story flows so naturally. My only complaint about this story is that, in the words of Queen, "I want it all and I want it now!" When's the next volume due out?! Sadly Queen doesn't get a mention in this graphic novel - and neither do any other bands, which is a bit odd, but no worries! I hold out hopes for some musical references in later volumes, and in the meantime, I recommend this as a worthy read!

A Lady in the Smoke by Karen Odden

Rating: WORTHY!

Erratum:
"How did they found out I wasn't at Anne's?" Find out?

This is an intriguing novel that perked my interest when I saw it offered for review on Net Galley. I'm thankful I was able to get it for review. Please note that since this is an ARC, any comments I make regarding the technical qualities of the writing may be irrelevant to the final published version of this novel as changes are made.

Set in Victorian times this is, unfortunately, a first person PoV story, which I generally do not favor. Indeed, I think they should come with a warning sticker! If I find an interesting novel in a bookstore or the library and see that it's first person, I typically put it right back on the shelf with very few exceptions. It seems that authors are obsessed with 1PoV these days, and they're becoming increasingly harder to avoid if you want to read at all. I find this sad.

With ebooks, you don't always get much of a chance to skim the first couple of pages (or sniff the paper!) and see what's what, but it had sounded intriguing and in the end I wasn't disappointed. This one wasn't bad at all to read. Some authors can write 1PoV without the main character becoming insufferably self-obsessed or self-important. I was grateful for that, too! On a personal note, rest assured that other than a single one I'm almost finished working on, I shall write no first person PoV novels (except for parodies!)! You have my word! And I promise you that mine will carry a warning sticker, which will make it the second novel I'm working on that will be issued one!

But I digress. Lady Elizabeth Fraser, of Kellham Park in Levlinshire, has had three seasons and has not made her match. Exactly why this is so isn't really explored, and I found myself wondering about it, but her mother is less than thrilled with her and makes it known as they head back north from London. There's a good reason for her mother's surly attitude which you might be interested to discover - but I ain't gonna reveal it! The pair don't make it home however, since their train runs off the tracks and they're lucky to escape with their lives. Why take the train? Well, the family fortune isn't what it once was - which is yet another reason Elizabeth's mother is not happy with her failure to marry. After three seasons and now a dip in fortune, Elizabeth is, so her mother believes, destined to end up an old maid, living off relatives. Then there's the accident, and the dedicated and charming Mr Wilcox, who is a railway surgeon, turns up. He doctors people who have been in train accidents; he doesn't do surgery on engines, just FYI!

This couple is thrown together as Lady Elizabeth helps him with the injured, and a whiff of scandal starts to rise, given how much time they spend together, he being an unmarried man and she a debutante (three seasons removed) from the nobility. As she grows to know him, she also realizes that he's into more than surgery. There's something going on with the railways, and it seems to be tied to Lady Elizabeth's shifting fortunes. That's all the spoilers you're going to get, but rest assured this is a satisfying and complex novel with many undercurrents and very little melodrama.

I liked the way the author captures the English. Some American authors do not seem to be able to do this right. The only questionable phrasing I found was "..and he'll come see you then..." which was missing a preposition and felt like it wasn't something that a Victorian lady of breeding would say. Aside from that (and maybe that's arguable), I was impressed by the feel of the novel and by the extensive research the author had done, which showed in what she wrote. It was very easy to become immersed in this world, which says a lot for me, not being a huge fan of historical novels, and less a fan of historical (hysterical?!) romances, but this is where I was most impressed.

I must confess that I don't really get why so many authors feel this urge to pair off their female characters at the end of the story. It's like there's an addiction to resolving every adventure by marrying off the main character at the end. Can a woman not stand on her own two feet? Can she not enjoy a friendship with a man (even in a Victorian novel!) without it having to be a romance? Yes, people do fall in love and get married, and/or end up between the covers, but between the covers of a novel it happens far more often than is realistic, and it happens with an unrealistic degree of expedition, which is what happened here. It would be nice to read more stories where women are not in need of validation by a male character all the time, but the romance here, while rather precipitous for me, was very understated, so it did not turn me off the story. The last chapter was, however, hard to stomach and the least enjoyable part of the novel for me.

One of the most interesting things about this novel for me, was that it's really a detective story yet it never feels like one, and it's a romance, but it doesn't feel like your standard bodice-ripper, either (last chapter notwithstanding), so kudos to the author for writing it this way. My blog is as much about writing as it is about reading, and it's really nice to find novels like this one, which deliver the goods, and in diverse ways, too. It made for an interesting read. I particularly liked the chapters covering the court case, which I think was brilliantly done.

I have to question the use of Levlinshire which seemed like it was intended as a village rather than a county, although its usage was so vague that it might well have meant the county. I don't know why an author would feel the need to invent a county for a novel set in Victorian Britain. Goodness knows there are plenty available, some of which no longer exist. Any would be perfect for a fictional work. No villages, towns or cities in England have that kind of name to my knowledge; only counties end in 'shire', but it occurred to me that perhaps this was the name of the country home of one of Lady Elizabeth's acquaintances, so it was the home which was referred to, and maybe the village by association? It just seemed odd (not odden, just odd!) the way it was used, but I forgave all of those issues when I read this sneaky passage: "and the boy George is a good sort"! I don't think this was intentional, but I agree, Boy George is a good sort!

As you can see, my "complaints" are few and trivial, which was impressive to me. I liked the main character, although there were times when she was rather stupid, but people are stupid on occasion. She had her Victorian sensibility moments, and while these were few, they seemed at odds with her iron resolve on other occasions, so she was a bit of a mixed bag. I never really got this attraction between her and the doctor. To call it love seemed way premature, but for most of the story it was relatively innocuous, so it wasn't a deal-breaker for me. Overall I liked the main character and rooted for her.

Really though, when it comes right down to it, the only important thing about a novel is not the cover, or who the author is, or how slick the back cover blurb is, or whether the novel is a best seller, but whether it's worth reading. To me, a novel is never two-fifths worth reading or four fifths or whatever; a novel is either worth reading or it isn't, and in my view this one is well worth reading. I recommend it.

Helen Keller by Jane Sutcliffe

Rating: WORTHY!

I had no idea I had such a backlog of reviews to post. That's what happens when you get focused on writing and nothing else save for some reading here and there! So many of them are negative, too, which is sad, so it's nice to be able to post this last one of the backlog, and get caught up with a positive one.

I saw this in the library and thought it would make for an informative and interesting read, and I was right for once. Helen Keller was born about as regular and normal a child as you can get, although rather more privileged than many people in her time. Before the age of two, however, this all changed. She contracted some indeterminate illness which had the effect of rendering her both deaf and blind. This led to a life of acute frustration and anger for her until, through Alexander Graham Bell of all people, she learned to communicate. It was Bell who indirectly put her in touch with brilliant and dedicated teacher Johanna "Anne" Sullivan, who finally managed to break through these horrible barriers which had been erected by disease, and make a connection with the child inside the feisty Helen exterior.

Almost from that moment on (there was a certain period of frustration which this book glosses over rather!), Helen turned her life around and became dedicated to learning as much as she could about everything she could. She learned to read Braille and to write and eventually wrote her own life story. She and Anne stayed together for half a century until Anne's death. Anne became blind herself around the age of ten, but she was lucky enough that there was surgery to correct some of her problems, so she was with sight at the age of twenty when she came to work with Helen.

This short book with text and pictures is an ideal introduction for young children to these remarkable women. I enjoyed it and I can't imagine any child who wouldn't. I recommend it.