Bring Up the Bodies

Apparently Hilary Mantel is only the 3rd author to ever win two Man Booker prizes and the 1st to win with a sequel, as she has done with her first two books of a projected trilogy about Thomas Cromwell. Apparently she took the criticism about her difficult to follow use of pronouns in Wolf Hall to heart, and has endeavored in the sequel to more clearly indicate when Cromwell is the "he" in question. Maybe for this reason, or maybe it's just greater familiarity with the huge cast of characters, but this book, focused on the downfall of Anne Boleyn, was easier to follow. Given Boleyn's scheming and cold-hearted treatment of those who opposed her rise to power, it's hard to be sympathetic, and yet, Henry is so fickle and so able to rationalize his wandering libido, that one does feel a twinge for her. Cromwell--never at the top of Anne's list of favorite people--is quick to recognize the shifting winds of Henry's affections, and to begin crafting the case that will free Henry to marry Jane Seymour. Cromwell must ally himself with old enemies, and thereby place himself at greater risk to bring down the current queen.  Cromwell emerged as a very complex character in Wolf Hall, capable of tremendous compassion and loyalty as well as ruthlessness. Here, the ruthlessness--admittedly in the service of old loyalties--drives the plot, as he focuses on those who wronged Cardinal Wolsey in determining who shall die and who shall live. The title refers to the call used to retrieve the prisoners for trial in the Tower of London, where the Queen and a selected few of her ostensible lovers are housed. There is a slightly longer Author's Note that alludes to the historical record drawn upon, but it still left me feeling like I wanted to know a lot more about her sources. Cromwell continues to develop as a man you can both admire and view with caution; certainly you would never want to get on his bad side.

Deadlocked

In this most recent of the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris, the focus is definitely shifting towards the fairies. There are still of course plenty of vampires, various were-creatures and assorted other supernatural beings, but the really complex plot has to do with someone making concerted efforts to get at Sookie. The Cluvial Dor, given to her grandmother by her fairy lover, Fintan, plays a key role. Eric is being visited by the King of Louisiana & Nevada, who is pressuring him to honor the marriage arranged for Eric by his creator. Sookie finds Eric feeding on another woman who has been dosed with fairy blood; she later turns up dead on Eric's front lawn. Needless to say, all of this is stressing the "marriage" between Sookie and Eric. Meanwhile, fairy great-grandfather Niall has surfaced again and taken cousin Claude back to Faery with him; Dermot is left in charge of the strip club where all the left-behind fairy types have taken refuge, and they are starting to get restless. Sookie has learned that Sam's girlfriend and Alcide's enforcer, Janalynn, definitely has it in for her, so she is wondering if she might be behind all the things that are going wrong. But the real culprit will surprise you as will Sookie's decision about how to use the magic gift bequeathed to her by her grandmother.  These new twists will fuel the series for a while longer. I personally do NOT like what HBO has done with this series, but I know some friends really like "True Blood." I just felt after watching a couple of episodes that the focus on blood and sex and the changes to some significant characters and relationships diminished the story line. I continue to find the books great fun, though.

Infamous

I really hate coming in at the middle of a series ("The Chronicles of Nick") but I would have to put in some concerted effort to start at the beginning with the set of characters in this book by Sherrilyn Kenyon. Apparently there are multiple series, each with multiple books that share overlapping characters. Even so-- being constantly reminded that there was a lot I didn't know about the history of Nick Gautier, 15-year old New Orleans teenager and potential destroyer or savior of humankind--this was an enjoyable read because Nick is in many ways a wise-cracking teen with all the usual angsts (parents, girls, bullying) but also trying to survive a whole lot of evil creatures (and some not so evil) who want him dead. He is the son of the Malachai, which is the penultimate evil creature and if he matures, his father will die and humanity will suffer. Protectors have been sent to look after him, one being his girlfriend who is also not what she seems. Raised by a poor single mom who was disowned by her own parents when she became pregnant from a violent rape, Nick fights more mundane persecution as well, labelled "white trash" by other kids at school. But now someone is posting horrible claims and pictures about the kids at school on the internet--Nick is getting a fair share of the blame and the fallout. Is this a plot concocted by those seeking to destroy Nick, or just garden variety human evil.  The action is non-stop, characters are complex as well as mostly supernatural. Intriguing enough that I would seek out additional books in this specific series (preceded by Infinity and Invincible) as well as other series by this author.

Shakespeare's Trollop

This is the 4th installment in the Lily Bard series by Charlaine Harris set in the small town of Shakespeare, Arkansas (preceded by Shakepeare's Landlord, Shakespeare's Champion, Shakespeare's Christmas). Lily originally came here to hide from the publicity and terrible memories of having been kidnapped, tortured and raped as a young woman. She makes her living as a cleaning person which gives her rather unique insight into people's character. Not surprisingly, she is the one to sense something fishy about the apparently sexually motivated murder of the town's "loose woman," Deidre Dean. Deidre may have been careless with her body, but she was fastidious with her belongings and she just would NOT have thrown her clothes and pearl necklace over a  tree branch where they could be damaged, nor, for that matter, would she ever have been likely to have sex in the woods instead of her bedroom. Lily does not want to become involved, but when a fire is started in the home of another one of her clients and eventually he dies, she just can't help trying to figure it all out. Meanwhile, she is sort of, kind of, starting to feel like she belongs in this town and she is sort of, kind of, feeling that her very occasional relationship with Jack is just too important. Apparently he thinks likewise, and the results may surprise followers of the series. Lily is a wonderfully dark but resilient character who is working hard to move on with her life. I really like her and these books are well written; the whole series has been great and this one is no exception. I only have one left (Shakespeare's Counselor) so I hope she writes another one soon!

Wicked Business

This is the 2nd or 3rd installment of the "Lizzie and Diesel" series by Janet Evanovich, a pair with special powers (Diesel  makes an earlier solo appearance in Plum Spooky with Stephanie). The premise of the series is that Lizzie, cupcake baker extraordinaire, is able to sense which things have magical power, so she comes in really handy when trying to locate the seven SALIGIA stones which are charmed/cursed with the deadly sins. Apparently the "lust" stone has now surfaced in Salem and Diesel, his cousin and nemesis Wulf, and a really crazy lady who calls herself Anarchy are all trying to get to it first. Lizzie doesn't particularly care who gets it, but Diesel definitely does--since that's his job. He drags Lizzie reluctantly along as they track the clues because she is the one who will recognize the stone when they find it. Lizzie seems to have some of the same bad luck that Stephanie does with cars and guys, although here the issue is that two people with special powers (i.e., Lizzie and Diesel) can't get "together" without one of them losing their powers. Lizzie would gladly do without her powers, but the results can't be predicted, so lots of teasing but no consummation. Humor is ever present in Evanovich's books, usually provided by quirky characters as well as ridiculous situations. We have Glo, a wannabe witch who takes Broom with her everywhere; Hatchet, who views himself as a medieval minion to his lord and master, Wulf; Carl, the monkey who lives with Diesel; Nina runs the local supply store for witches and other supernaturals in Salem; and Cat 7143 who lives with Lizzie. Fun light read as always with these books.

The Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer

Well... the title of this book by Lucy Weston (ostensibly also a vampire) pretty much says it all. Decently written, good plot, and fun read overall for those who like the supernatural stirred into their historical fiction. The timing on reading this was particularly opportune since I had just finished reading Hilary Mantel's fictionalized biography of Thomas Cromwell (Wolf Hall) and this book takes up with the ascension of Elizabeth to the throne. Elizabeth was the child of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, which forms the structure of Mantel's book, and provides the background to this tale. We are to believe that on the day of her coronation, Elizabeth is taken to her mother's tomb (Henry had Anne beheaded because she failed to produce a male heir) and becomes aware that she has special powers and that she is destined to fight off a take-over bid for the kingdom by none other than Mordred, bastard son of King Arthur and now King of the Vampires. Entries are alternately from a "secret journal" of Elizabeth's (discovered by the author) and ruminations by Mordred on his frustrated efforts to convince Elizabeth that they should marry and rule both the Vampire kingdom and England together. It ends with less than a definitive conclusion to the struggle-- leaving open the possibility of a sequel. I still prefer the Gail Carriger vampire/werewolf/soulless books because if you are going to be over the top about the supernatural, do it with your tongue firmly in cheek.  Thanks to my book pal Dale Pehrsson for sending this to me.

Summer of the Big Bachi

This is the first in a series of books by Naomi Hirahara that feature protagonist Mas Arai. I would almost say, the anti-hero, Mas Arai, because at least in this first book, I did not find much to like about him. He was 15 years old and living in Hiroshima the day the bomb was dropped. He survived physically but many around him did not and he lives with the images of the dead and dying and with the things the survivors did that are hard to reconcile. Some people did overtly bad things, others--like Mas--just failed to do things that in retrospect they wish they had. Bachi is a little like karma and Mas' has come back to bite him one fateful summer in his 69th year. He lives in Altadena and has made his living as a gardener, marrying Chizuko, and then sending their only daughter, Mari, to Columbia. But he is neither a very good husband or father, since he keeps secrets, hides his earnings and spends them on the races, and is generally emotionally unavailable to either spouse or child. His wife has since died of stomach cancer and he hasn't heard from his daughter in a long time. In fact, it is only through a friend, who has a daughter the same age, that he learns his daughter is married and pregnant. The big secret that Mas has kept all these years is that his pal Riki Kimura left their friend, Joji Haneda, to die and stole his papers so he could escape to the U.S. at the end of the war, and has been living under that name ever since. Now someone is looking for Joji Haneda and bad things are starting to happen. When a young Japanese man, claiming to be the grandson of Riki Kimura and Haneda's sister, Akemi, also comes to town and starts snooping around, Mas is reluctantly dragged into sorting things out to prevent an even greater miscarriage of justice. This is an intriguing glimpse into the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation Japanese American culture in southern California.

Wolf Hall

Aside from being a provocative name for a book, not sure why Hilary Mantel called this book Wolf Hall.  Jane Seymour's family resides there, but they are really fairly minor characters in this densely populated tome. My leisure reading tends to go fairly quickly. It seldom takes me more than a few days--a week at the outside--to finish a book, but this one took me about a month. Every single page is THICK with conversations that reveal relationships, intrigues and implications for the whole of Europe. Even with the help of a 5-page "cast of characters" and two royal family trees at the front of the book, I'm sure it would take me three readings to get everything that goes on. And I was really pissed to find that the author provided virtually no overview of the actual historical events that are the setting for the book, nor does she indicate her sources, except for one book by Cavendish about Thomas Wolsey. One can certainly find interviews that make clear she did her research! Nevertheless, the critics love this book, which won both the Man Booker and the National Book Critics Circle awards. The author certainly creates a compelling portrait of the main character, Thomas Cromwell, who rose from--according to this author--an abusive and impoverished life as a blacksmith's son to become the 2nd most powerful man in England during the reign of Henry VIII. Henry, Anne Boleyn, Thomas More, Cardinal Wolsey and several more minor characters are also well enough drawn to become distinct figures. It was often hard to keep the rest of the cast sorted out. Cromwell is portrayed as the consummate politician in a time when a miscalculation meant at least a fall from grace and at worst a horrible death. Mantel turns the common portrayals of Cromwell upside down by portraying him as compassionate, loyal and loving as well as strategic. It is a fascinating and challenging read for those who relish historical fiction. I will almost certainly read the sequels--one already published (Bring up the Bodies) and one still to come. There a more formal review of the book in the Wall Street Journal that works for me.

My Ántonia

      I have always believed that a real benefit of book groups is reading things that are outside one's regular reading routine; so, although I am not in a book group, my friend Dee Stefanelli is and, thanks to her, I have read 3 books I might not have picked up on my own. I have already written about Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and Caleb's Crossing. My Ántonia by Willa Cather is the 3rd. One of the things I said I would do when I retired was read some of the classics I had previously missed and now I've started. This is an incredibly moving and heartfelt love story for the land in the middle of America and the immigrants who settled it. These were the first generation Scandinavians and Europeans who homesteaded an often harsh land and brought it under the plow to become the breadbasket of America. The story of Ántonia is told from the adult viewpoint of Jim Burden, now a successful lawyer in New York City,  who came to Black Hawk, Nebraska as an orphaned 10-year old on the same train as 14-year old  Ántonia and her family in the late 1800's. Jim was fortunate in that he came to live with his grandparents who were already successful farmers with a real house. The Shimerda family, of Czech or "Bohemian" nationality, came to live in a large hole in the ground. Due to the dishonesty of their agent, their money bought them only broken down farming equipment and animals and they knew nothing about farming, the father having been a professional musician. They would have starved except for the generosity of neighbors like Jim's grandparents, and yet Mrs. Shimerda and even Ántonia were haughty and critical of these efforts. Mr. Shimerda killed himself out of grief for all he had lost and  Ántonia mourned him all her life. She and Jim were, in spite of their age difference, nearly constant companions and Jim adored her.  After his grandparents leased out the farm and moved to town, some of the "country girls" came to town to work and help out their families financially.  Ántonia became the live-in maid/cook/nanny for the family next door to the Burdens and, although always a hard and cheerful worker, became enamored of the town life and eventually lost her position. After Jim had gone away to college, he no longer saw  Ántonia but kept tabs and learned that she had been engaged, then deserted and left with an illegitimate child. Broken-hearted, she returns to the family farm to work and raise her child, then soon marries a fellow "Bohemian" with whom she builds a successful farm and large family. Twenty years later, Jim reluctantly goes to see her, fearing that circumstances have beaten her down and changed the girl/woman he has idolized through the decades. But  Ántonia has preserved her love of life and restores Jim's faith in the future. 

     Part of what I reflected upon while reading this book is that this has always been a country of immigrants, those whose first language and history and customs are not of this country; they have built America. It dismays me that we continue, as a people, to disregard this truth and discriminate against whichever group is the newest to seek refuge here. The language and passion of this book will vividly recreate the people and the places for the reader and it's well worth taking the trip to Black Hawk.  

The Beautiful Mystery

     I always awaits the next Louise Penny with delicious anticipation and pre-ordered The Beautiful Mystery so as not to have to wait an extra minute. Right away I was immersed in her masterful ability to make her characters come alive and create the place for the story. She has delivered another bombshell with this installment in the Inspector Gamache series, and this time it hits even closer to home than when one of our favorite innkeepers was arrested for murder. Two parallel tales unwind here, both dealing with fraternal orders, both dealing with power and how it can be used for good or ill, specifically how some will use their power to try (and sometimes fail) to protect, while others will twist the less powerless to their will. She is so effective at conveying this, that I was even led to doubt...
     The Gilbertine monks have hidden in the backwoods of Quebec for hundreds of years, first escaping the Inquisition and later just the world. They have taken a vow of silence, but ironically are known for their exquisite renditions of Gregorian chants. And now the world knows where they are, for the Prior and choirmaster persuaded them to release a recording and it has rocked the world. People have come seeking them and been repeatedly sent away from this isolated and fortress-like monastery.  But the Prior has been murdered and the Abbot is in crisis because he failed to foresee how the growing rift in his community could come to this. Gamache and Beauvoir come to stay and find out who committed this crime against God and man. The conflict among the monks centered around whether or not they should make another recording. The Abbot wants to preserve the community as it has been, while the Prior wanted to make the recording...and perhaps had another agenda as well.
     We can rely on Gamache, who is in thrall to the chants, to find the killer no matter how painful it will be to the community. But the sabot thrown into the works is when his arch enemy, Superintendent Francoeur, shows up. So begins a game of cat and mouse with the highest stakes in play. I usually don't hesitate to reveal the ending, and indeed the murderer is caught, but I can't bring myself to talk about the really important things that transpire here. If you haven't read the previous 7 books, you can still read this...it will stand on its own. But you will miss some of the nuance and gut-wrenching significance of the conclusion.