Teaser Tuesday: Before Versailles by Karleen Koen

My teaser this week has a French feel to it...fitting for the month when I am celebrating Paris in July! In fact, the quote is referencing one of the most famous of French kings, Louis XIV, known as The Sun King:

This teaser comes from page 44:

The beauty of this king was his young and handsome fearlessness, his walking among his people, or among his soldiers on a battlefield, as the incarnation of France, which he was. The queen mother had used it, displayed him like an icon to the people in those past, perilous days of treachery and war, hoping the sight of him, his innocence, his young, grave, dignified purity, would rally support. By God, it oughtn't be tampered with, that innocence, and yet it would be. Time would do that, if nothing else.

Please note that this teaser comes from an ARC version and so may be different in the final version.

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 Very Thought of You by Rosie Alison

England, 31st August 1939: The world is on the brink of war. As Hitler prepares to invade Poland, thousands of children are evacuated from London to escape the impending Blitz. Torn from her mother, eight-year-old Anna Sands is relocated with other children to a large Yorkshire estate which has been opened up to evacuees by Thomas and Elizabeth Ashton, an enigmatic, childless couple. Soon Anna gets drawn into their unraveling relationship, seeing things that are not meant for her eyes and finding herself part-witness and part-accomplice to a love affair with unforeseen consequences. A story of longing, loss, and complicated loyalties, combining a sweeping narrative with subtle psychological observation, The Very Thought of You is not just a love story but a story about love.

Sometimes you hear about a book and you think to yourself "I know that I am going to love this book" and then when you come to write the review it gives you great satisfaction to be able to say that you were right. And then there are the other books - those ones that sound like exactly the kind of book you are going to love...and you just don't.

The Very Thought of You by Rosie Alison is unfortunately one of the latter types for me. In theory this is a perfect book for me. I love reading stories set against the background of war, particularly World War II, and whilst I have read about a young person going to stay with a family as an evacuee earlier this year, this is the first time I have read that experience through the eyes of an evacuee who goes to a stately home turned school. The historical setting and the location sound fascinating.

The story starts with 8 year old Anna Sands. She is about to be evacuated to the countryside like thousands of other children were just after the outbreak of World War II but before the bombs actually started to fall on the major cities. After sharing a magical day out with her mother in preparation for their separation, Anna is looking forward to going to the seaside but instead ends up at a stately home in Yorkshire with lots of other children, where the house has been hastily converted into a school. Anna is somewhat remote from the other children emotionally, but feels a connection to Thomas Ashton almost immediately. Thomas worked for the diplomatic corps until he was left wheelchair bound after a bout of polio and is now running the school and doubling up as a teacher for some of the time.

Thomas and Elizabeth are desperate for children, and when I say desperate, I mean desperate, particularly in Elizabeth's case. There is some hope that by opening their home up to become a school they will in some way compensate for their barrenness but it is at best a band aid solution. As a character, Elizabeth suffers from being very two dimensional - the bitter woman who descends to a very dark place. She is not the only two dimensional character who fills the pages by any stretch of the imagination, but she certainly is the most obvious example of this.

Even the secondary characters seem to be caricatures of real people. For example, whilst Anna is pining away in the school in Yorkshire, her mother Roberta is living the high life in London barely giving her young child a thought.

Of the things that bothered me about this book, one of the bigger issues include the fact that the author didn't seem to know what the focus of the novel was. Was it meant to be a story about the evacuee experience of a young girl? Was it meant to be a dissection of a marriage from the point where Elizabeth decided that Thomas was the man for her and made it happen, through his illness and subsequent disability, and then their inability to have children? Was it meant to be the story of the descent of the physical house from family home to empty National Trust property? All of the above? Having finished the book, I can't say that I am sure.

That's not to say that Alison can't turn a phrase, because she most certainly can, and there were sections where I stopped and reread passages because the observations were so strong. For example, from page 82:

It was no comfort to her that William had been heroic, because the soaring death toll had already devalued the worth of any one sacrifice  

and then again from page 105

Sometimes, across the dining room she would glimpse Thomas talking to someone, and her heart would turn over at the sight of his smile. And a memory would come back to her of the longing she had known for him before their marriage. But she knew that now it was only a memory of a feeling, not the feeling itself. 

The couple of lines of the publisher's blurb say that "The Very Thought of You is not just a love story but is a story about love", but I would argue that it is neither of those things, or at least it is not the kind of love that I want to read about or live. Why would anyone want to love if it left everyone unfulfilled for the rest of their days? I guess this kind of ties in with the idea that all the characters in "literature" need to be miserable in order to be worth reading about. I don't get why that needs to be the case, but it is certainly not something that has gone unnoticed when it comes to discussion about the various literature prizes over the years.

Thanks to Galleygrab for giving me the opportunity to read this book! I am glad to be able to say that I finally read (or more precisely reviewed) something for my ongoing Orange Prize Project which I have been neglecting for a long time now. This book was shortlisted for the 2010 Orange Prize. It also counts towards the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

Rating: 3/5

Cross posted at Historical Tapestry

Sunday Salon: Book titles that make me want to sing

Sometimes I see a title of a book and it just makes me want to sing - not because of it's beauty or relevance or because I love the book, but simply because it reminds me of a song. I am sure that this is what the publisher had in mind when they named the books, but still...

Today I thought I would talk about three books that perfectly illustrate this to me. I haven't read any of them, but I do have two of them on my giant TBR list.

The first is a historical romance - Dukes to the Left of Me, Prince to the Right by Keiran Kramer. From the very first time I heard this title I found myself singing the next line of the song - Stuck in the Middle with You! Kramer's titles are very obviously plays on pop culture references with the first book in her series titles When Harry Met Molly, this book being the second, and the third being Cloudy With a Chance of Marriage. I am sure that the fourth title in the series has some connotation as well but I can't think of what it is meant to be at this time of the morning. The title is If You Give a Girl a Viscount.

The second example is two books from a completely different genre - Neuromancer by William McBride and Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride, with the second being a much more obvious play on words for the Elton John song Tiny Dancer.

To be honest, I have no idea how the title relates to the subject of the book (although I really hope that it isn't in the most obvious connotation) but every time I see the book mentioned I start singing.

The final example that I am going to bring you today is a bit different to the other two in that the song that is referenced in the title is totally relevant to the topic of the book. I Think I Love You by Allison Pearson is about a woman who as a teen in the 70s was obsessed with David Essex Cassidy from The Partridge Family. Fast forward twenty years and the main character's daughter has a crush of her own and she is looking back at her own teenage life.

I have borrowed this one from the library but had to return it unread. One of these days I will borrow it again. I actually am not sure whether I will like it or not because I wasn't a huge fan of her first novel but I love the idea of it enough to give her another go.







Can you think of other song titles that make you want to sing? I would love to hear of some other examples!

Murder in the Kitchen by Alice B Toklas

In this memoir-turned-cookbook, Alice B. Toklas describes her life with partner Gertrude Stein and their famed Paris salon, which entertained the great avant-garde and literary figures of their day.

With dry wit and characteristic understatement Toklas ponders the ethics of killing a carp in her kitchen before stuffing it with chestnuts; decorating a fish to amuse Picasso at lunch; and travelling across France during the First World War in an old delivery truck, gathering local recipes along the way. She includes a friend's playful recipe for 'Haschiche Fudge', which promises 'brilliant storms of laughter and ecstatic reveries', much like her book.

Alice B Toklas is best known as the woman who was the life long companion and partner to Gertrude Stein, and lived in Paris from 1907 until at least the 1940s. Alongside Stein, Toklas hosted a salon in Paris which attracted luminaries such as Ernest Hemingway and Picasso.

In this book, she talks about learning to cook starting with simple dishes that she had previously eaten in California and working her way up to much more complex meals as she grew more confident.

As much a reflection of a particular time and place in history as it is a recipe collection, Toklas shares memories of people and times in what is a very readable book. Very early in the book she tells of a day that Picasso came for lunch and she "decorated a fish in a way that I thought would amuse him".

The title of the book comes from the second chapter, where Toklas contemplates the idea that before any cooking begins there must be murder committed - the first victim "was a lively carp brought to the kitchen in a covered basket from which nothing could escape".  After the deed was done, "the carp was dead, killed, assassinated, murdered in the first, second and third degree" and Toklas was left waiting "for the police to come and take me into custody."

The stories shared are not only of the famous people she knew. Amongst others, the author also shares the story of Kaspar, the lovelorn Austrian chef who cooked Linzer Torte and Gypsy Goulash for them.

By far the biggest chapter of the book is titled Food to Which Aunt Pauline and Lady Godiva Led Us. Who is Aunt Pauline? It is the delivery truck that Stein and Toklas used to deliver supplies during World War I. Stein "was a responsible driver if not an experienced driver. She knew how to do everything except go in reverse" and in it they traveled across the French countryside collecting supplies, anecdotes and recipes. 

Here Toklas talks about returning to Paris just after the end of World War I (from pages 45 to 46)

The next morning we were back in Paris, more beautiful, vital, and inextinguishable than ever. We commenced madly running about, to see our friends and theirs. It was gay, it was feverish, but pleasurably exciting. Auntie Pauline took us to lunch and dinner parties. Our home was filled with people coming and going. We spoke of each other as the chauffeur and the cook. We had no servant. We had largely overdrawn at our banks to supply the needs of soldiers and their families and now the day of reckoning had come. We would live like gypsies, go everywhere in left-over finery, with a pot-au-fue for the many friends we should be seeing. Paris was filled with Allies, the Armies, the Peace Commission, and anyone who could get a passport. We lunched and dined with a great many of them, at their messes, headquarters, homes, and restaurants. One evening Aunt Pauline had taken us out to the Bois de Boulogne to dine with friends in the garden of one of its restaurants. While dinner was being served the maitre d'hotel asked me to please follow him, someone wished to speak to me. It was a policeman to announce that trucks were not allowed in the Bois. They had been tolerated during the war, but an Armistice had been signed. So would Madame see that her truck did not appear there again.

One of the things that I found myself contemplating whilst reading this book was about how so many of the foods that we count as luxuries now seemed to be common place foods, or perhaps it is because Alice B Toklas and Gertrude Stein mixed in higher society than I ever would. For example, there is a recipe for Perpignan Lobster which calls for four small lobsters. Now I don't know about you, but last time I went out for dinner and one of my friends had lobsters, they were upwards of $100 each. It could well be that there is a difference in terminology as well - a bit like shrimps vs prawns which seem to have different connotations depending on where you live.

This book is only 80 or so pages long, so it is obvious that the book contains only selected excerpts from the original text, although I have to say that isn't particularly clear anywhere on the books themselves. It is the first book I have read from the Penguin Great Food series, but I can't see it being the last.

Have you heard of the Penguin Great Food series? 

There are twenty books in the series in all, showcasing the best of food writing over the past 400 years, and there is a lot of variety. In addition to this book, I have also bought Exciting Food for Southern Types by Pellegrino Artusi which is about Italian cooking, and I have my eye on a few more including The Chef at War by Alexis Soyer - a Victorian era chef who went to the Crimean War to try and improve the quality of the food that was provided to soldiers and A Taste of the Sun by Elizabeth David. It doesn't hurt that the books look gorgeous as well!

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs.

Paris in July: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Anna was looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. So she's less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris--until she meets Etienne St. Clair. Smart, charming, beautiful, Etienne has it all . . . including a serious girlfriend.

But in the City of Light, wishes have a way of coming true. Will a year of romantic near-misses end with their long-awaited French kiss? Stephanie Perkins keeps the romantic tension crackling and the attraction high in a debut guaranteed to make toes tingle and hearts melt. 

When a book is so beloved across the blogosphere there are really two things that can happen - it either lives up to the hype or you are left scratching your head wondering what can everyone else see that I just can't. I have had my fair share of the latter over the years, but I am very happy to say that this was not one of those experiences! I loved this book!

The book opens with our title character, Anna, being informed that she is going to be going to a boarding school in Paris for her final year, and to say that she is not best pleased is an understatement. She doesn't want to go to Paris, she doesn't want to leave her friends behind, especially not the guy who could be, might be, her boyfriend, maybe, and it certainly doesn't help that she doesn't speak a word of French.

In the end, Anna is given no choice by her father who is deliciously portrayed as a Nicholas Sparks like author who most definitely doesn't write romances, but who has had his five hankys required movies adapted for the screen and is now a really big deal. Anna and her father have a lot of father-daughter issues that are familiar territory - divorce and the associated hurts for starters, but even worse is that Anna is something of a film buff and she is mortified by his movies.

In fact, there is quite a bit of familiar YA territory covered in this novel. I have mentioned the parent child relationships, but others include the fish out of water scenario, young love, friendship. Don't, however, let this be off putting because it is all extremely well done, and the voices of the characters are fresh and compelling.

Alone in her room after being delivered to Paris, Anna is crying in her bedroom when she is interrupted by her next door neighbour, Meredith, who along with her friends, adopts Anna. In the group are Josh and his girlfriend Rashmi, along with Etienne St Clair.

Now, I need to get this out of the way early. I know that I am more than old enough to be his mother, and I know it is kind of wrong of me to be drooling over him, but Etienne St Clair is by far one of the best YA heroes (for want of a better word) that I have read in a long time. The author hasn't made the mistake of making Etienne perfect, although he does apparently have pretty fantastic hair, is funny, has a British accent, speaks perfect French and more.  He most definitely has flaws and his own set of issues including parent issues, and there is of course the fact that he already has a girlfriend to contend with as well.

**Sigh**

Anyway... back to the book. Anna struggles to adapt to life in a strange city. It is really only once she is forced to leave the safety of the college that she begins to appreciate living in Paris and to realise that just because she is away from home she doesn't have to leave behind the things that she loves. Along the way, Anna experiences growing feelings for Etienne, betrayal, self discovery and so much more. She experiences life.

This novel takes a familiar premise and builds from there with excellent characterisation, believable situations for the characters and believable character growth, and grows into an excellent read. All of this means that Perkins' next book, which is a companion novel to this one and is called Lola and the Boy Next Door is one of my most anticipated new books over the coming few months.

For an example of Perkin's writing, check out the quotes that I included in a Weekend Cooking post I did about this book a while ago where Anna's visit to a Paris patisserie is described. I am off to reread the quotes myself so that I can salivate over the descriptions again.

This book is one of those books that I would suggest that you could give to people who don't normally read YA as an example of example of excellent young adult literature, and is one of the few books that I have rated as 5/5 reads this year.

Library Loot: July 13 to 19

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

Given my post on Sunday, it probably isn't a surprise to see that most of my loot this week is romance related, although there was a surprise at the library when I went last night and found that the Jean Auel was there. I have borrowed it before, and I am not 100% sure that I will get to it this time, but we will see!

What Happens in London by Julia Quinn - This author kickstarted my current glom on romance novels. It's only fitting that I am taking this opportunity to read some of her books that I haven't gotten to yet. I have actually already read this one!

Simply Irresistible by Jill Shalvis - Read this one already. This is an author who has been recommended to me a number of times. I will definitely be reading more by her.

Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James - Another one I have already read. Again, this is another author that has been recommended another time. I liked this one, but not loved it. Will read more from the author though.

Reloot:

I also borrowed the movie Dear Frankie which stars Gerard Butler. I have heard lots of good things about this movie, but it was when Susanna Kearsley posted about this song from the movie that I decided I had to watch it sooner rather than later. I've always loved the Ronan Keating version of this song that is in the movie Notting Hill as well.




Want to share your library loot? Add your link to Mr Linky below!

Teaser Tuesday: The Creed Legacy by Linda Lael Miller

My craving to read romances continues unabated, but I do think I might be getting to the point where I need a more balanced reading diet! However, that won't happen until after I finish reading The Creed Legacy by Linda Lael Miller.

My teaser comes from page 181

Brody cupped a hand under her elbow, loosely, wanting her to look at him, not wanting her to turn skittish and spook. "Now that we've established the ground rules," he began, pausing once more to clear his throat, "there's the part that comes after."

Please note that this teaser comes from an ARC version and so may be different in the final version.

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!

Paris in July: Cars 2 in Paris

Over the weekend we went to see Cars 2 at the movies. By we I mean my nearly 4 year old and 9 month old nephews, my sister, her husband, his parents and my son and myself! As soon as I saw this footage, I knew that I wanted to share it. There is a bit more in the movie set in Paris, but this was the section I could find on Youtube.

The movie itself was a whole lot of fun. I am however grateful that we have now moved behind the need to watch these kinds of movies over and over and over again! Having said that, some of the movies my almost teenage son likes to watch are definitely not to my taste, so I would prefer this movie to those any day.


And just because I liked the song, and I love Robbie Williams

Sunday Salon: Reading Cravings

Before I get to my post proper today, just wanted to mention a couple of things. Firstly, I am still reading for a good cause! Thanks to my blogging friends who have sponsored me to read for The Novel Readathon, raising money for the MS Society. Going to have to put the hard word on some of my non blogging friends I think!

Secondly, I was invited to contribute to a new blog ezine this week and my post is now up! A String of Pearls is run by 5 women and they are blogging about all sorts of different topics. I was invited to contribute, and when I finally thought about what I wanted to say, it was all about reading (of course) or more precisely about not reading.  Read my guest post here.

Today I want to talk about reading cravings.

Normally when I finish a book I look at what is due back next at the library, or what is due for review in order to decide exactly which book it is that I am going to read next. Given that the books that are on my list are varied that means I could pick up some historical fiction or a mystery or fantasy or whatever, just whatever is due next.

For the last month or so though, I have been craving one particular type of read - romance. Now nothing has changed in my life as to why I would be craving romance. My single status has been the same for nearly 9 years now and I just don't see it changing any time soon so it isn't anything to do with that. The fact remains that for the time being I just can't get enough and I am ignoring what is due next on my list in order to read them. It also doesn't matter what sub genre - contemporary, historical and also a little bit of erotic romance. The only sub genre that I haven't been reading that I normally do is paranormal romance, but who knows, that could change soon. I certainly have a few unread paranormal romances sitting on the bookshelf.

It also could be old favourite authors, or new to me authors - I have tried seven new authors to me in the last month.

Some months I read a couple of  romances in amongst the other novels, but so far in July in particular it is the other way around - I have read two non romances, and everything else has been romance.

Back in the beginning of June I read Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by new to me author Sarah Maclean. I think though the book that really started this bout of romance craving for me was Just Like Heaven by Julia Quinn. I bought the book when I was in the city meeting up with some fellow romance readers and I read it that day. As soon as I read that book I was scanning my shelves looking for the two other Julia Quinn books I knew I had there that I hadn't yet read which were The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever and Mr Cavendish, I Presume, both of which had been languishing on my shelves unread for a couple of years. I also read What Happens in London and now have to wait for the next book to come in from the library.

Things got a little bit steamier when I read two erotic romances, The Relic by Maggie Nash and Friendly Fire by Megan Hart, and then back to historical romances when I read How to Woo a Reluctant Lady by Sabrina Jeffries. I am really looking forward to the next book in the series that book is part of!

A couple of months ago I posted about The Virgin River series where I talked about the fact that I don't read books in a series back to back and I don't really read contemporary romance. It seems that those things are no longer really true!

The next books I read were Exclusively Yours, Undeniably Yours and Yours to Keep by Shannon Stacey.  Sometimes the premise may be a bit thin but the books themselves were so good! For example, one of the premises is a fake engagement, and at the time I read it I thought surely that doesn't happen in this day and age. Having said that, all the news outlets are suggesting that the recent marriage of Prince Albert of Monaco is a marriage of convenience, so who knows, maybe it does still happen. Maybe I should try and find a fake boyfriend to try and fix my non-existent love life? If there were more books in this series I would quite happily have kept on reading them.

Next up were Goddess of the Hunt and Surrender of a Siren by Tessa Dare. When these books came out a couple of years ago there was such a buzz about them I ended up buying them. Normally I try new to me authors from the library. I do think that maybe I should have read them when I bought them instead of two years later!

Finally, two more new to me contemporary authors - Simply Irrestistible by Jill Shalvis and Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James. I think I have decided that I like the whole small town contemporary romance thoroughly enjoying Simply Irresistible in particular, and I have the next book on request from the library already!

So these are the books that have been keeping me up late at night for the last month or so.

Do you ever find yourself craving a particular type of book? Do you indulge that craving?

Weekend Cooking: The Writers Banquet series

Melbourne is one of only a few UNESCO Cities of Literature (with the others being Dublin, Iowa City and Edinburgh). One of the initiatives that led to that designation was the establishment of The Wheeler Centre which is "a centre dedicated to the discussion and practice of writing and ideas" and as such there are spaces for writers to work, workshops etc, and there is a full program of events for those of us who are readers....which is where I come in!

Recently there have been a series of three free events that were held in conjunction with The Book Show on Radio National where authors come and talk about various food related topics and then they were played on the radio a few days later and are still available for download on the website.

I was lucky enough to go to the first of these events. I was also meant to go to the third one but circumstances conspired against me.I did however think that this might be topic that might be of interest for Weekend Cooking participants. Each of the podcasts is just under an hour in length and you can listen to them by clicking on the link below each summary.

The first event was The Writers Banquet: In the Writer's Kitchen and featured Toni Jordan, Morris Gleitzman and Andrea Goldsmith talked about the role of food, of food memories in the life of the writer. Other questions include comparing the writing process to the cooking process, about how fiction nourishes the reader, the danger of putting recipes that you haven't actually made in your book, the love of cheese and more.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2011/3205425.htm

The second event was The Writers Banquet: Literary Feasts where the discussion was about some of the famous scenes revolving around food in literature. The most obvious example to my mind is the decaying wedding cake of Miss Haversham in Great Expectations. This is the podcast where I heard about Kafka's Soup which I posted about in last week's Weekend Cooking post. The guests include crime writer Shane Moloney and Carmel Bird and there were nods to The Christmas Carol by Charles Dicken, the feast in The Leopard and more.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2011/3238876.htm

The final event was The Writers Banquet: A Culinary Travel Adventure which featured three of Australia's well known chefs - Frank Camorra who is the owner of the Movida chain of Spanish restaurants (I posted about eating at Movida Aqui here), Stephanie Alexander and Elizabeth Chong. They talk about leading culinary tours, Elizabeth Chong talks about the meaning of rice to Chinese people, their travel experiences etc.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2011/3251350.htm

 Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs.

Library Loot: July 6 to 12

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

I am very excited this week! Our new library branch is officially open! They are only open late one night a week so I am not sure that I will change my branch to the new one, but I am definitely planning to go and have a look tomorrow! Just the idea of all those brand new books excites me! Also exciting....my loot for this week:

Troubletwisters by Garth Nix and Sean Williams - This is the first book in a new series cowritten by two Australian authors. I have read Nix before, but not Williams.

Lunch in Paris: a love story with recipes by Elizabeth Bard - This is the July book for a group I am in on Facebook and also fits nicely for the Paris in July event I am participating in at the moment.

Cape Storm by Rachel Caine - The next book in the Weather Warden series.

The Penny Pinchers Club by Sarah Strohmeyer - I haven't read one of this author's books for ages!

The White Woman on the Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey - Heard lots of good things about this book!

The Lost Art of Gratitude by Alexander McCall Smith - The next book in the Isabel Dalhousie series.

Notorious Love by Sabrina Jeffries - I have read all of this authors recent books so now it is time to work my way through the remaining backlist books I haven't yet read.


Claire has Mr Linky today, so head on over and share your loot by adding your link to Mr Linky!

Teaser Tuesday: The Countess Angelique by Sergeanne Golon

I have been reading this series for a while now, and really loved them all. That is until this book, it seems, which I am really, really struggling with. I do really love the sex siren cover though, which so far doesn't seem to have a lot to do with the book!

The teaser comes from page 259:

Sometimes the love of liberty replaces all other loves. It is a much stronger, a much more burning passion than anyone thinks... It can become a man's sole pre-occupation. And it always makes him a nobler creature...

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 Katyn Order by Douglas W Jacobson

The German War Machine is in retreat as the Russians advance. In Warsaw, Resistance fighters rise up against their Nazi occupiers, but the Germans retaliate, ruthlessly leveling the once-beautiful city. American Adam Nowak has been dropped into Poland by British intelligence as an assassin and Resistance fighter. During the Warsaw Uprising he meets Natalia, a covert operative who has lost everything—just as he has. Amid the Allied power struggle left by Germany’s defeat, Adam and Natalia join in a desperate hunt for the 1940 Soviet order authorizing the murders of 20,000 Polish army officers and civilians. If they can find the Katyn Order before the Russians do, they just might change the fate of Poland.

I read Douglas W Jacobson's debut novel A Night of Flames, and thoroughly enjoyed it, so when I saw that there was a new book coming out I instantly knew that I had to have it!

Adam and Natalia are members of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) known as the AK. It is 1944 and the AK is fighting a lonely, losing battle against the might of German Army as they destroy the city of Warsaw in the process, whilst the Red Army sits within striking distance taking no action to assist the partisans.

Adam is an Polish born American who came back to Poland to live with his aunt and uncle in the years before the war. He is also a crack sniper, code name Wolf. Just as he doesn't know the true identities of many of his AK colleagues, they also know nothing of his true identity. Adam's grief for his uncle, who he knows died in the very early years of the war has driven him to become a killing machine - a man who is good at what he does, and without much emotion attached to the actions he undertakes.

One of the few people to get under his cold mask of emotionless existence is Natalia - code name The Conductor. She has been a key member of the organisation in her role as a messenger passing papers from Krakow to Warsaw, but she is also driven by grief at the loss of all her family and determination that Poland should not be overrun by the German army. Unfortunately it looks like the alternative is that they will be taken over by the Russians, and that isn't much of a better option.

At the core of this book is the search for the one piece evidence that would prove who authorised the massacre of more than 20000 Polish officers in several locations, including the Katyn forest. When the mass graves were discovered in 1943, the Russians blamed the Germans and vice versa.Now that the war is coming to it's end, the winners are dividing up the spoils, including the entire country of Poland. If the evidence can be found that it was a Russian atrocity, then maybe, just maybe, Poland can be saved from becoming part of the Communist bloc.

Jacobson does a great job at portraying the desperation of the fighters, the horror of a city being destroyed, almost brick by brick by the German army - churches, hospitals, civilian houses - nothing is off limits. I wasn't quite as convinced by the relationship between Adam and Natalia as I was in his previous book, by the relationship betweeen Jan and Anna.

I think part of the reason that I wasn't as convinced is that I would classify this as more of a historical thriller than Night of Flames, or at least what I remember of Night of Flames (when I reread the review earlier it turns out that I did have some of these same issues). The book is filled with lots of action, the characters move between Poland, England and Germany, the body count is high, but to sum it up in just a few words - it was definitely a page turner!


I remember visiting Dachau when I went to Germany many years ago and seeing the displays there and being horrified at the things that humans do to each other in the name of war. At that time, the Balkan conflicts involving the former Yugoslavian states were under way and I remember thinking how it was that we don't seem to learn the lessons of the past. Given the news that we see quite regularly it appears that we still don't, so it is important that novels like this are written to remind us not only about this fact, about the terrible and needless atrocities that humankind seem to be able to inflict on each other, but also the triumph of the human spirit under the most trying of circumstances.

Rating: 4/5

This book is one that I read for the Historical Tapestry Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

Originally posted at Historical Tapestry

Sunday Salon: June Reading Reflections

For my Sunday Salon post this week I am sharing my June reads and a quick update on my challenges.

Here are the books I read in June

In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming 4.5/5
Cooee by Vivienne Kelly 3/5
Nine Rules to Break when Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean 4.5/5
Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick 5/5
13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson 4/5
The Empress of Ice Cream by Anthony Capella 4/5
Just Like Heaven by Julia Quinn 4/5
22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson 4/5
Mr. Cavendish, I Presume by Julia Quinn 4/5
The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn 3/5
The Katyn Order by Douglas W Jacobson 4/5
The Ice Cream Girls by Dorothy Koomson 2.5/5
The Relic by Maggie Nash 3/5
Kafka's Soup by Mark Crick 4/5
Friendly Fire by Megan Hart 4/5
The Wild Rose by Jennifer Donnelly 4/5
How to Woo a Reluctant Lady by Sabrina Jeffries 4/5
Gale Force by Rachel Caine 3.5/5


In terms of my challenges, 22 Britannia Road is my read for the What's in a Name challenge, and I have just one more category to read until I have completed that challenge.

22 Britannia Road also counted for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, as did Lady of the English, The Empress of the Ice Cream and The Wild Rose. I have 4 more books left before I complete this challenge.

I had a Julia Quinn mini glom in June - I bought Just Like Heaven when I was out for lunch with friends and came home and thought it looked like the perfect book to suit my mood. It was so perfect that I ended up reading two more books by her that I have had on my shelf for ages.

I actually have glommed another author this weekend (in July!) - this time contemporary romance author Shannon Stacey. Now I need to go and read the books that I should have been reading!

Weekend Cooking: Kafka's Soup by Mark Crick

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to have dinner with Franz Kafka, Jane Austen or Raymond Chandler, this is your chance to find out.

Literary ventriloquist Mark Crick presents 14 recipes in the voices of famous writers, from Homer to Irvine Welsh.

Guaranteed to delight lovers of food and books, these witty pastiches will keep you so entertained in the kitchen that you'll be sorry when your guests arrive.

I first heard about this book on a podcast series all about books and food that I intend to blog about at some point as a Weekend Cooking post, and as soon as I heard about it I was off looking at the library catalogue to see if they had it or not. I ended up having to get it through inter library loan, but it was worth going to the effort because if you want a fun way to spend part of a Saturday afternoon.

The author, or literary ventriloquist if you wish, gives the reader 14 different recipes all in the various different voices of some of the most famous authors. Some of the voices work better than others, but there are several that are laugh out loud funny. Each of the entries is illustrated by the author as well.

A glance at the contents and a brief comment or quote:

Lamb with Dill Sauce a la Raymond Chandler (see below) - The voice on this one was spot on.

Tarragon Eggs a la Jane Austen -"It is a truth universally acknowledged that eggs, kept for too long, go off."

Quick Miso Soup a la Franz Kafka - "K's feeling that he was an outsider at his own dinner party was not unfamiliar."

Rich Chocolate Cake a la Irvine Welsh - "A Quality Fuckin Cook Up" - I think this was my favourite - included so much from people sniffing sugar to a coffin in the flat.

Tiramisu a la Marcel Proust - "This time I closed my eyes and sipped deeply of the draught, realising that what I sought dwelt not in the cappuccino but within myself."

Coq Au Vin a la Gabriel Garcia Marquez - A man facing execution is to have this as his final meal.

Mushroom Risotto a la John Steinbeck - 'The porcini lay dry and wrinkled, each slice twisted by thirst and the colour of parched earth."

Bone Stuff Poussins a la Marquis de Sade - lots of fleshy white birds and innuendo in this one. It was interesting because the setting of this story was undoubtedly modern, but the language stayed what I imagine is true to de Sade's writing.

Clafoutis Grandmere a la Virginia Wolfe - "Looking back at the cherries, that would not be pitted, red polka dots on white, so bright and jolly, their little core of hardness invisible,...."

Fenkata a la Homer - "Odysseus bound the mighty creature's feet and slung him over his shoulder to carry back to the Achaians' camp on the beach of the grey sea, beneath the bows of the wooden ships."


Vietnamese Chicken a la Graham Greene - "A recipe has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses at what point the cooking instructions become necessary, after the butcher has done his work and before care of the dish passes to the seasoning whims of the guests."

Sole a la Dieppoise a la Jorge Luis Borges - War time espionage whilst eating fish?

Cheese on Toast a la Harold Pinter - Mozzarella on ciabatta? I'm not eating that!

Onion Tart a la Geoffrey Chaucer - "Culinary are our metamorphoses, From ingredients chaos, creators we."

Apparently there are 3 more recipes in the paperback version of the book including a recipe for Christmas Pudding a la Charles Dickens which I think would be fun! As to actually cooking from the recipes, I guess it is possible, but you have to sort through all the prose. Even if you don't want to cook from it, this is a really fun, quick read.

Lamb with dill sauce a la Raymond Chandler

1kg lean leg of lamb, cut into large chunks
1 onion, sliced
1 carrot, cut into sticks
1 tbsp crushed dill seeds, or 3-4 sprigs fresh dill
1 bay leaf
12 peppercorns
1/2 tsp salt
850ml chicken stock
50g butter
1 tbsp plain floor
1 egg yolk
3 tbsp cream
2 tsp lemon juice

I sipped on my whisky sour, ground out my cigarette on the chopping board and watched a bug trying to crawl out of the basin. I needed a table at Maxim's, a hundred bucks and a gorgeous blonde; what I had was a leg of lamb and no clues.

I took hold of the joint. It felt cold and damp, like a coroner's handshake. I took out a knife and cut the lamb into pieces. Feeling the blade in my hand I sliced an onion, and before I knew what I was doing a carrot lay in pieces on the slab. None of them moved.

I threw the lot into a pan with a bunch of dill stalks, a bay leaf, a handful of peppercorns and a pinch of salt. They had it coming to them, so I covered them with chicken stock and turned up the heat. I wanted them to boil slowly, just about as slowly as anything can boil.

An hour and a half and a half-pint of bourbon later they weren't so tough and neither was I. I separated the meat from the vegetables and covered it to keep it moist. The knife was still in my hand but I couldn't hear any sirens.

In this town the grease always rises to the top, so I strained the juice and skimmed off the fat. I added more water and put it back on the heat.

It was time to deal with the butter and flour, so I mixed them together into a paste and added it to the stock. There wasn't a whisk, so using my blackjack I beat out any lumps until the paste was smooth. It started to boil, so I let it simmer for two minutes.

I roughed up the egg yolk and cream and mixed in some of the hot sauce before putting the lot back into the pan. I put the squeeze on a lemon and it soon juiced. It was easy. It was much too easy, but I knew if I let the sauce boil the yolk was gonna scramble.

By now I was ready to pour the sauce over the meat and serve, but I wasn't hungry. The blonde hadn't showed. She was smarter than I thought. I went outside to poison myself, with cigarettes and whisky.

 Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs.

Paris in July: Get on a train to Paris

Quote from 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson:

Envelope #7

Dear Ginny

Head for the train station. You're getting on a night train to Paris.

At least, I'd like you to get on a night train to Paris. They're really nice. But if it's day, get on a day train. Just GET ON A TRAIN.

Why Paris? Paris needs no reason. Paris is its own reason.

Stay on the Left Bank, in Montparnasse. This area is maybe the most famous artists' quarter in the world. Everyone lived, worked, and played here. There were visual artists, like Pablo Picasso, Degas, Marc Chagall, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, and Salvador Dali. Writers too, lik Hemingway, Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Gertrude Stein. There were actors, musicians, dancers ... too many to name. Suffice it to say that if you stood here in the early twentieth century and you started throwing rocks, you would hit a famous and incredibly influential person who helped shape the course of artistic history.

Not that you would have wanted to throw rocks at them.

Anyway, go now.

I have to insist that you go to the Louvre immediately. You can get your next assignment there, in the proper atmosphere.

Love

Your runaway aunt.

I would love to be getting on any train, or plane in my case, to Paris! I do have memories of when I visited what seemed like an eternity ago, but I would love to go again!

Paris in July

Last year I thoroughly enjoyed participating in Paris in July - a month long event hosted by Karen from Book Bath and Tamara from Thyme for Tea, which invites the participants to celebrate all things Parisian! I was hoping that they would run the event again, and they are!

This year though, I am determined that I am actually going to post about more than just food, which was my main focus last year! Don't get me wrong, there will still be quite a lot of food mentions but maybe some books and quotes etc as well!

Follow the links above to find out more about Paris in July, and about the other participants in the event!

Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman

Lying in front of Harrison Opuku is a body, the body of one of his classmates, a boy known for his crazy basketball skills, who seems to have been murdered for his dinner.

Armed with a pair of camouflage binoculars and detective techniques absorbed from television shows like CSI, Harri and his best friend, Dean, plot to bring the perpetrator to justice. They gather evidence—fingerprints lifted from windows with tape, a wallet stained with blood—and lay traps to flush out the murderer. But nothing can prepare them for what happens when a criminal feels you closing in on him.

Recently emigrated from Ghana with his sister and mother to London’s enormous housing projects, Harri is pure curiosity and ebullience—obsessed with gummy candy, a friend to the pigeon who visits his balcony, quite possibly the fastest runner in his school, and clearly also fast on the trail of a murderer.

Told in Harri's infectious voice and multicultural slang, Pigeon English follows in the tradition of our great novels of friendship and adventure, as Harri finds wonder, mystery, and danger in his new, ever-expanding world.

The first thing that you need to know if you are intending to read this book is that it is properly hutious. Don't know what that means? I will get to it shortly.

Harrison Opuku has recently immigrated to the UK from Ghana, along with his mother and two sisters, Lydia and Agnes. His father and other relatives have remained in Ghana with hopes of joining them soon. The family lives in one of the tower blocks that form part of the London suburban landscape. The area is rough with violence, gangs and danger forming part of the everyday landscape.

The book opens when Harrison and his friends are standing around looking at the body of one of his acquaintances. The boy appears to have been killed for his dinner. With the gang culture that is prevalent the Police seem powerless to come up with a breakthrough in the investigation to find out why the boy died, and who killed him. When it seems apparent to Harrison that there will be no answers, he decides to try to investigate the murder, along with his friend Dean.

Harrison is an interesting character, alternatively innocent and hard edged, awed by the life that he is now living in London, but also reminiscing about is life back in Ghana, worried about his sisters and mother especially seeing as he is now the man of the house, yet needling his older sister Lydia constantly, on the verge of sexual activity and yet happy to just hold hands with his girlfriend Poppy.

Sometimes the juxtaposition between the two levels of extreme was startling, but I have no doubt that that was a deliberate choice by the author. For example, early in the book in one paragraph Harrison is telling us about the playground where sometimes the kids swap football stickers and sweets, and a short five or so paragraphs later, he is being shown the correct way to 'chook' (knife) someone by some of the members of the Dell Farm Crew. A few more paragraphs and Harrison is talking about his love for all the different types of Haribo lollies.

Many of the people that Harrison comes in contact with are the marginalised in society - elderly, disabled, immigrant, drunken - and yet he does find some fragile sense of community with these people. In a way he has been searching for belonging anywhere he could find it, even if that means becoming part of the Dell Farm Crew. The alternative to belonging to DFC though is to be enemies to them, and that is a dangerous place to find yourself.

As Harrison and his friend Dean continue to investigate the murder they find themselves coming up against the code of silence which dominates the gangs, and by asking the wrong questions, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time, they bring attention to themselves in ways that may have consequences far greater than anyone can imagine.

There is one other 'character" in the book whose presence grows as the story progresses and that is a pigeon.. As I was reading the book I was puzzled by the choice that the author made, but looking back on it from a distance of a couple of weeks I suspect that the use of this additional perspective was to provide a foreshadowing point of view, but also to reiterate the childishness of Harrison as the book speeds to it's conclusion.

When the author talked about the tower block that Harrison lived in, I was taken back to the time when I lived in one of those towers. We lived in one in Sheffield for a couple of years until I had my son and we were moved out because the Council didn't allow young children to live in the higher levels of the tower. I was lucky to live on a very quiet floor of the tower. There was an old lady who had lived in her flat for nearly 30 years who lived opposite us, and the flat next to us was quite often empty. I do remember getting out of the lift on the wrong floor and being terrified because just one floor below us there was graffiti and broken windows on the landing.You had to be careful.

There were times when I completely related to the Harrison and his family constantly checking to ensure that the door was locked, and to try not to look out the peephole when you heard unexpected noise. I learnt that the hard way when I was at home by myself one night and the police broke the door in next door at 2am and suddenly I had them knocking on my door too. The author did a great job of reminding me of living in that environment of constant awareness of what was happening around you. It wasn't always fear, but I guess I was constantly aware that something could happen, even if it didn't.

At the very beginning I mentioned that this book was hutious, which is as far as I can tell is a Ghanaian slang term for "frightening". Not only are the events portrayed hutious to our main characters, but as a reader you are taken into a world where just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or not being accepted by a particular group of people, can lead to danger every days. Sometimes that danger is slight, but other times, it is much greater.


There is charm in the language, there is a relatively good portrayal of events from the perspective of a young boy, but please don't expect this to be a light and fluffy read, for it is something completely different altogether from that.  Weeks after finishing this novel though, I found myself contemplating the events portrayed in the book in far more than a 'I really liked that book' kind of way. It is a rare book that does that to me. The strange thing about that for me is that this is despite the fact that I didn't totally connect with the world or the characters, even though I did have my experiences to draw upon.


Thanks to Netgalley for the e-ARC of this novel.