Top Ten Tuesday: Water-y!

 

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is April Showers (Interpret this however you’d like: rainy day reads, books that make you cry, books that give you happy tears, books to wash away a bad reading experience, books set in rainy places, books with rain/raindrops/umbrellas on the cover, blue book covers, etc.). I am choosing to focus on water and rain!

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen - I haven't thought about this book for the longest time!

The Weight of Water by Anita Shreve - I am not sure I remember anything about this book

The Seduction of Water by Carol Goodman - I read a number of Carol Goodman books back in the day!

The Water Horse by Julia Gregson - I read a few of this authors books but it's been a long time since I did so.

Fish Out of Water by Mary Janice Davidson - I only read this book because the author was coming to Australia as a guest of honour at a reader convention I was going to many, many years ago!

A Life on Pittwater by Susan Duncan - Next time I go to Sydney I wouldn't mind going out to Pittwater. It sounds like a beautiful place  

Water Under the Bridge by Lily Malone  - This is part of a trilogy set in a small town in Western Australia

Fresh Water for Flowers by Valerie Perrin - I read this for last year's Paris in July. I have a couple more books from her to read at some point

The Right Attitude to Rain by Alexander McCall Smith - This is part of the Isabel Dalhousie series set in Edinburgh

The Rainfall Market by You Yeong-Gwang - This is a fun Korean fantasy novel 

Top Ten Tuesday: Trees

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Covers/Titles with Things Found in Nature (covers/titles with things like trees, flowers, animals, forests, bodies of water, etc. on/in them) (Submitted by Jessica @ a GREAT read) I am choosing to focus on trees for my post!

At the Foot of the Cherry Tree by Alli Parker - Listened to this on audio this year and it was really good! It is a fictionalised story of how her grandparents met just after WWII in Japan.

The Flame Tree by Siobhan Daiko - If you are looking for a WWII story set in the Pacific theatre of war, then this could be a good option.

Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak - This was one of my favourite reads of 2022.

Under the Christmas Tree by Robyn Carr - This is part of the Virgin River series.

The Drowning Tree by Carol Goodman - I have read a number of this author's books but it has been a while.

Family Tree by Barbara Delinsky - I don't remember anything about this book. To be fair, I did read it back in 2008.

The Red Tree by Shaun Tan - This is another author I haven't read for a long time.

The Persimmon Tree by Bryce Courtenay - I often think about the love story in this book.

Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty - I have had this book sitting on my shelf for a couple of years now.

The Cedar Tree by Nicole Alexander - This is one that has been sitting on my Kindle for a while! The description does sound good.

Top Ten Tuesday: Watery books

 

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Books I’d Gladly Throw Into the Ocean which was submitted by Beauty & Her Books. While I could name some books that have annoyed me, I am twisting the theme this week to be books with a water theme.

Light Between Oceans by M L Stedman

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Sea Glass by Maria V Snyder - Must get back to this series this year!

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley - Never miss an opportunity to mention this book.

The Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen - I think I heard that SAA is working on a new book, which is exciting!

The Lake House by Kate Morton

Lake in the Clouds by Sarah Donati - Not my favourite in this series, but still a good read!

The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman

Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray by Anita Heiss - This is a book that doesn't come out until next month but I read it last week and really enjoyed it. The title translates to River of Dreams

TSS: The Night Villa by Carol Goodman

I had a very odd experience this week, and it is one that I can't remember having before.

Firstly, to put it into context, I borrowed this book through Inter Library Loan, which at my library means that it is covered by a lovely green cardboard cover (for an example see this post). I had the book in my bag, and the cover started to come loose, and so I could read the previously covered over back cover copy. This is what I read:

Recovering from a shocking act of violence, Cory Chase, classicist and mythographer, decides that taking part in The Papyrus Project, which aims to restore the charred scrolls of Pompeii, might offer her a much needed escape. That is until she suspects that the Modern Pythagoreans, a cult who believe that a lost manuscript of Pythagoras may still exist, are also interested in the scrolls.

Suddenly Cory finds herself following a trail that leads her through Southern Italy, Sicily and to Pythagoras's birthplace, where she is pulled into a terrifying underworld of conspiracy to reignite an ancient cult that once rivalled Christianity in the Roman World...

Now in the early part of the book there is an incident where the main character finds herself in hospital and at one point she is asked to identify herself.

"Sophia Anastasia Chase," I told her, surprised my lips could still fit around the syllables.

Did you notice anything odd? Hopefully you did!

The main character in the book is named Sophie Chase. The main character in the back copy blurb is Cory Chase. Now to be fair there is mention of a Cory in the book, but it seems like a pretty big mistake to make at a publisher. Even more surprising is the fact that two years after being released the incorrect synopsis is still on Amazon.co.uk. There may have been later editions which have the correct details, but I didn't go looking for them.

I can't remember seeing such a blatant mistake before, although on Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich the inside jacket copy refers to an event that doesn't even happen in the book. So this week, I thought I would ask the question "What's the worst mistake you have seen in a book description from a publisher?"

This book was the last book left in Carol Goodman's back list. Now I will have to wait patiently for each new book to come out from her, although I did notice on her website that she has released an urban fantasy novel that she has written in conjunction with her husband under the name Lee Carroll. I have no idea if that book will be released here or not, but if I can get it I will give it a go, because I generally enjoy Goodman's writing.

It's  probably a good thing that this was the last of Goodman's books that I have read and not the first, because if it had of been the other way around I may not have read anymore from her because The Night Villa is my least favourite Goodman novel.

The novel starts with Classics Professor Sophie Chase as she is accompanying one of her students to an interview for a summer internship. Sophie herself had decided not to go on the trip to Italy, but when there is a terrible tragedy, she changes her mind. The aim of the trip is to try and find out more about Villa del Notte (The Night Villa) which was destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in the first century, specifically to try and locate some scrolls which may be previously undiscovered writings of Pythagoras.

Threaded throughout the novel there are both the modern narrative focusing on the excavations and other work being done, Sophie's personal history and her connection to members of a Pythagorean cult known as Tetraktyans, as well as a historical narrative which shared a little bit of what it would have been like to be living in the shadows of Mt Vesuvius on that fateful day.


The main thing that the team, which is funded by a wealthy benefactor, is looking for are scrolls that may have been written by Pythagoras, which explains why the cult might be interested in obtaining the scrolls by whatever means possible, but other parties also interested also include the Church, and Sophie herself who has previously written about a young slave girl called Iusta who history showed had been the subject of a very unusual court case.

I have mentioned before that I find Goodman to be a bit formulaic in that the main female character is usually a widow or divorcee who has an unusual interest or occupation, and who finds herself searching for the truth about events that happened some time ago and as a result finds herself in danger. Whilst some times that formula means that I know what to expect and I can find the reading experience very comfortable, this time that wasn't quite the case for me, as it felt like hard work reading through the novel. Part of the reason for that is that I think that there is an assumed level of knowledge related to the particular themes, this time mythology, and I don't think I knew enough of the mythology to appreciate some of the story.

I was very interested in reading this book as soon as I heard what it was about, mainly because I loved the idea of reading a book set in the location near Capri/Naples/Herculaneum, and the location was nearly enough to make the story more palatable, but in many ways the book seemed to still have quite a few unanswered questions by the time we get to the end of the book and the setting wasn't enough to make me turn a blind eye to those flaws.

In the end I didn't feel that I could give this book a rating of more than 3/5.

So, have you seen many mistakes of the nature I described above?

Teaser Tuesday: The Night Villa by Carol Goodman

This week my teaser comes from The Night Villa by Carol Goodman. Once I have read this book I will have read all of the books on her back list. They are some times a bit formulaic, but generally they are pretty good reads.

The teaser comes very early in the book and so at this point we didn't really know a lot. It is from page 9:

Agnes smiles shyly at my praise, her newly glossed lips pink and innocent. I smile back, glad I've managed to reassure her without having to admit that it's not her crazy ex on the phone. It's mine.

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by Miz B at Should Be Reading. Head on over to find out all about it, and how to join in!

The Drowning Tree by Carol Goodman

Augustus Penrose created the stained glass 'Lady Window' to adorn the chapel of the university he founded for the daughters of the women who worked in his factory, the Rose Glass Works. Depicting his wife, Eugenie, as the Lady of Shalott, it's a mesmerising portrait that has come to embody the spirit of the school itself.

But now, eighty years after it was created, the Lady Window is due for restoration. The task falls to former alumna Juno McKay. She's restoring it with the help of her friend, Christine Webb, an art historian who is researching the window for her thesis. Christine seems to have discovered some new evidence that suggests that Clare, not her sister Eugenie, was the subject for the Lady Window. But before Christine can discuss her findings with Juno, she's found dead in a boating accident that eerily echoes the fate of the Lady of Shalott. but did she drown or was it something more sinister?

As Juno starts to make her own investigations into just how Christine died, she learns more about Augustus Penrose and his family. The Lady Window was not the only thing the Penroses bequeathed to the world. Madness and deception also form part of their legacy...

Christine Webb is a glassmaker who specialises in restoring stained glass windows. Her company is currently working on a really big project - the restoration of The Lady Window from Penrose College. Christine had attended the college until she left because she was pregnant, and now as a single mum she is watching her teenage daughter become more independant meaning that she has more time to devote to herself. She had married but her husband, who was a successful artist, has been institutionalised in the local asylum after he tried to kill both her and their child years before in a moment of madness.

Christine's best friend Juno also studied at the College and was working on a thesis about the window, and about the founders of the college, Augustus Penrose and his wife Eugenie. After giving a speech at the college about her ideas about the origins and subject matter of the window, Juno goes missing, and is found drowned in the grounds of the Penrose's now deserted home, in an eerie echo of the fate of the Lady of Shallot, who is one of the many classical mythical figures that were used in the Penrose's art and decorations.

For me, this book was flat from beginning to end. The characters never really engaged me, in particular Juno who I never really cared too much for. If there was one thing I did like, it was the treatment that Goodman gave to Neil, Iris's ex husband, although the climactic events of the book that involved him felt extremely contrived and very handy so that we could have the ending that occurred.

Once again Goodman tried to show how clever she was by trying to fit as many classical mythical figures into the narrative as well as lots information about the making and restoration of glass. I do normally like it when an author tries to incorporate new things into the narrative, but when the narrative was already ponderously slow, this just tended to slow the action down even further.

When I first started reading this book I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there was a link to the previous book that I had read, which I posted about here. It was basically the only pleasant surprise I had. After having declared how much I enjoyed the last Goodman book that I read, this one was a real disappointment for me. I have requested The Sonnet Lover from the library so I guess we will see where that book fits for me in the enjoyment scale.

The Seduction of Water by Carol Goodman

Iris Greenfeder, ABD (All But Dissertation), feels the “buts” are taking over her life: all but published, all but a professor, all but married. Yet the sudden impulse to write a story about her mother, Katherine Morrissey, leads to a shot at literary success. The piece recounts an eerie Irish fairy tale her mother used to tell her at bedtime—and nestled inside it is the sad story of her death. It captures the attention of her mother’s former literary agent, who is convinced that Katherine wrote one final manuscript before her strange, untimely end in a fire thirty years ago. So Iris goes back to the remote Hotel Equinox in the Catskills, the place where she grew up, to write her mother’s biography and search for the missing manuscript—and there she unravels a haunting mystery, one that holds more secrets than she ever expected. . . .

Of the three Carol Goodman books I have read, this is my favourite! Iris Greenfeder is a writer. The reality is that she is more a writing teacher who is constantly looking for the story that is going to give her success so that she can step out from the shadows of her mother. Her mother, Kay Morrissey, wrote two hugely successful fantasy novels, and is rumoured to have written the third and final book in the trilogy but she was killed in a terrible hotel fire, and no one knows exactly where that third book may be hidden.

When she is writes a story about her mother she achieves a degree of success, and she is contacted by her mother's former agent and asked to write a book about her mother. The best place to do this is at her childhood home, the Equinox Hotel in the Catskills. Where the hotel used to be a family vacation destination, nowadays the hotel is struggling and is in danger of being closed for good. Fortunately, a new owner has been found, and so Iris is employed to manage the hotel when it reopens, which should allow her to save her home but also the time she needs to write, and access to documents about her mother and memories from the few guests who do continue to return year after year.

What follows is a story that is laced through with myths and legends - Celtic myths of selkies and fairies, but when she sets her students a writing project to write about myths we are also introduced to the myths of other countries, most memorably from Japan. As part of her teaching at a community college, we meet several other diverse characters who play minor but key roles in the book. Iris also teaches at a prison, and it is here that she meets Aidan Barry who is just about to be released on parole.

With her new role as manager, she offers Aidan a job at the hotel - a chance for the ex-con to start again. The question is can you ever truly leave the past behind? Is the new owner of the hotel only interested in the hotel as a business or is there more too it than that? Who exactly was her mother and was Kay Morrissey's death an accident, and why are all these questions arising after all these years? As Iris learns more, the evidence takes her in completely unexpected directions and threatens to reveal the truth about a lot of people who don't necessarily want the truth revealed after all these years.

As the book heads towards its climax, the body count grows, the plot twists and turns, and Iris is forced to evaluate her relationship with her artist boyfriend and fight for what it is that she really wants out of life. If there is one criticism it may be that the characters had to go through one too many trials at the end of the book, but it's a small thing.

I loved the mythology and the imagery that permeated this book. Of the three books by this author I have read so far, this is the one book that I would be happy to reread. If Goodman's future novels are like this one then I will be a very happy reader indeed.


Have you reviewed this books? Leave a comment and I will link to your review.

The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman

Jane Hudson never thought she would return to Heart Lake. Her years there as a scholarship girl ended in a double tragedy: the drowning of her two roommates.

Now she is back, adjusting to her new life teaching Latin and as a single mother. But the events that haunted her memories for so many years begin to recur in front of her eyes. It seems she alone can see what is happening, and only she will be able to prevent a second catastrophe...

Surrounded by the lake that gives the school its name, steeped in history and overflowing with the emotions of teenage girls, Heart Lake guards its past - but cannot keep it hidden.

When Jane Hudson returns to her school after many years away, it is a chance to return to a place that feels like home, as long as she doesn't think about the tragic events of her final year. Jane has just separated from her husband, and is returning to the workforce as a single mum teaching Latin. Unfortunately, as much as Jane doesn't want to think about the events that claimed the lives of her friends in very strange circumstances, there is someone else who wants Jane to remember. Somehow, someone has got hold of Jane's old diary that went missing in her final year of school and is leaving pages around for her to find. More scarily, events are being manipulated so that there are a new group of girls who seem to be reenacting the events from 20 years before.

Having subsequently read a couple of other Carol Goodman books (reviews still to come), I have come to the conclusion that one of her aims it to try and show as much as she can of what she knows. Maybe it is to try and give her books some kind of point of difference to other mystery/suspense type books by finding something and sharing it. In this case a lot of the emphasis was around Latin, and in other books it has been Celtic and Classical myths, and glass making. That in itself isn't a bad thing but there are times when it feels just a bit too clever. I think that part of the reason why it worked for me in this book was because it was the first time that I had read one of her books, but there is at least one other of her books where it just didn't work for me at all.

There are a lot of topics covered in this novel particularly around issues that many young girls face - sex, self harm, suicide, abuse, and to be honest it isn't a particularly cheerful novel. It has an almost mystical/gothic feel to many of the events in the book, and that feeling isn't redeemed by the solution.

Whilst I liked this book when I first finished it, the more I think about it, the more holes I find in it. Even when I first finished the book, the biggest problem that I had is with the ending, which whilst not coming completely out of the blue, wasn't far off of it, but I guess I was sufficiently interested in Goodman's writing to keep reading her books. So far I have read three, and have another on the TBR pile. For a debut this was a pretty good read - it remains to be seen and whether Goodman can maintain a consistent quality to her writing. At this stage I personally am not convinced that she has.


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