Review - The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr

    Title: The Angel of Darkness

    Author: Caleb Carr

    Synopsis:

    WARNING: The synopsis contains possible spoilers for The Alienist by    Caleb Carr

It is June 1897. A year has passed since Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, a pioneer in forensic psychiatry, tracked down the brutal serial killer John Beecham with the help of a team of trusted companions and a revolutionary application of the principles of his discipline. Kreizler and his friends--high-living crime reporter John Schuyler Moore; indomitable, derringer-toting Sara Howard; the brilliant (and bickering) detective brothers Marcus and Lucius Isaacson; powerful and compassionate Cyrus Montrose; and Stevie Taggert, the boy Kreizler saved from a life of street crime--have returned to their former pursuits and tried to forget the horror of the Beecham case. But when the distraught wife of a Spanish diplomat begs Sara's aid, the team reunites to help find her kidnapped infant daughter. It is a case fraught with danger, since Spain and the United States are on the verge of war. 

My Thoughts:

Given that the second season of The Alienist series has already come out on TNT and I'm eagerly anticipating it on Netflix because that's the place I'll be able to see it myself, I thought I'd read the book first to be up to date for the show.

For those of you who are not familiar with the duology – soon to be trilogy – Caleb Carr's crime novels are set in New York at the end of the 19th century and follow an alienist (the term roughly referred to psychologists at the time) and his group of friends as they track down serial killers. In the first book they are after a ruthless man who murders child prostitutes with extreme brutality while in The Angel of Darkness they set out to catch a woman whose victims are mostly babies.

The main difference between the first and the second Alienist book is that The Angel of Darkness is narrated by young Stevie Taggert, Dr. Kreizler's ward instead of John Moore, Kreizler's journalist friend. I enjoyed John's storytelling, but Stevie's recollections are positively hilarious at times and, taking into consideration how dark the story is on the whole, I appreciated the fresh, youthful humour that somehow eased the digestion of the tougher parts of the novel for me.

I found it refreshing that this time the killer was a woman and so Sara's insight into the female mind became invaluable in the case. By now she's opened her own detective agency and it is so nice she gets recognition and a chance to act on her ambitions. I absolutely adored how Laszlo and Sara's relationship was raised to another level (not romantic, or was it? I like that I can't tell), how he treated her like an absolute equal intellectually and otherwise (not that he didn't in the Alienist, but here their mutual trust and respect deepened even more).

As for the plot, the murderess's identity is revealed pretty fast but the team finds it hard to get a grip on her and so they have to work hard to build up a case from scraps of evidences. They find a couple of allies during their investigation, like the talkative Mr. Picton, John's old prosecutor friend and Kat, Stevie's sweetheart who, although a bit troublesome, proves to be helpful in the end.

I confess I liked AOD more than The Alienist for many reasons, one of them being that it deals less with New York's political mechanisms of the time and more with the killer and the female psyche. Since I'm not extremely interested in politics in general the parts in The Alienist where it was detailed who held what kind of power over whom bored me quite a bit even if on the whole the political intricacies had a great influence on the plot. I felt AOD was more character and case-centered and had less 'background noise' in it, which was more to my liking.

Judging by the promos I've seen the tv show won't be very faithful to the book in its second season, but I won't mind that if they've come up with an original plot that doesn't mess much with my favourite team. 

The books I wholeheartedly recommend to everyone, they are pure fun for crime and historical fiction lovers.

Goodreads | Amazon

Review - The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

    Title: The Silence of the Girls

    Author: Pat Barker

    Synopsis:

When her city falls to the Greeks, Briseis's old life is shattered. She goes from queen to captive, from free woman to slave, awarded to the godlike warrior Achilles as a prize of battle. She's not alone. On the same day, and on many others in the course of a long, bitter war, innumerable women have been wrested from their homes and flung to the fighters.

As told in The Iliad, the Trojan War was a quarrel between men. But what of the women in this story, silenced by their fates? What words did the speak when alone with each other, in the laundry, at the loom, when laying out the dead?

In this magnificent novel of the Trojan War, Pat Barker summons the voices of Briseis and her fellow women to tell this mythic story anew, foregrounding their experiences against the backdrop of savage battle between men. One of the contemporary writers on war and its collateral damage, here Pat Barker reimagines the most famous of all wars in literature, charting one woman's journey throught it, as she struggles to free herself and to become the author of her own story.

My Thoughts:

This is the story of the Invisible, the story of the Oppressed. Of the ones who the songs barely mentioned despite their courage which often was greater than the fighting men's. The ladies who suffered and were forced to endure the dire consequences of the bloody war under the walls of Troy are often but a footnote in books that retell the events of the Iliad. Pat Barker decided to honour them at last. 

The Silence of the Girls starts with the sack of Lyrnessus and the capturing of its women. The first half of the events are told from Briseis' point of view who's given to Achilles as a war prize. In Lyrnessus she was a princess, now she's a slave. At home she wasn't allowed to walk the streets unveiled, now all she owns are rags and she's subject to the obtrusive leer of the Greek fighters.

One of the most shocking issue that this novel deals with is how the women were objectified. None of the men (except for Patroclus) treated them as human beings. The humiliation was sometimes hard to read and made me extremely angry. 

Achilles wasn't depicted as the great hero in this novel. The author focused on how he had been abandoned by his mother Thetis and because of this he grew up to be a miserable man-child. He was cruel and cold, but he did go through some development in the novel which was interesting to observe (some parts are told in the third person following Achilles).

There's a tension you feel throughout the book that's generated by the fact the women don't speak up for themselves. Because they can't, if they want to survive they can't. Some choose to speak with action, like Briseis' cousin who throws herself off the wall of the city right before they are captured. Some resist by not resisting, like young Polyxena who holds her head high while she's taken away to be executed. Some pray wordlessly, hard and long for vengeance and get it, like Briseis. You see all these silent battles, but never a loud confrontation, because it's impossible. It's dreadful to realize they don't have a choice.

Pat Barker included all the themes Iliad works with and more. There's Achilles' grief for Patroclus, but there is the mothers' grief for their murdered babies, sisters' anguish over the loss of their brothers. There are musings about whether a person's memory lives on, but also how the memory of a community survives. The question is asked: can there be friendship between enemies? and so on...

If you're looking for long descriptions about the heat of the battles don't look here. The whole book is set in the background, at the camps. But there's plenty of pressure behind closed doors and consequences of the fighting always touch the women's lives. They are strong and enduring, they are women to look up to; Briseis, Arianna, Helen, Chryseis, Hecamede, Hecuba, Polyxena, and I could go on... these are names to remember.

I'm always looking for works that present Iliad from a new angle; Pat Barker's book is not one that I'll soon forget, I'm sure.

Goodreads | Amazon

Review - White Lotus by Libbie Hawker

  Title: White Lotus (White Lotus Trilogy #1)

  Author: Libbie Hawker

  Synopsis:

  In the sixth century BCE, Egypt is the greatest civilization known to mankind. But with a foolish king on its throne, the Nile Valley is ripe for conquering.

Amid this climate of danger and strife, in the alleys and brothels of Memphis, an extraordinary young woman comes of age. To spare her siblings from starvation, Doricha is sold into prostitution. But she has gifts beyond mere beauty. Through wit and determination, she works her way into the realm of the hetaerae—courtesans of exceptional refinement.

As a hetaera, Doricha has access to the schemes and negotiations that shape the world. But the rich and powerful also have access to her, and Doricha soon finds herself in the Pharaoh’s harem, caught up in his reckless plans. When the Pharaoh sends her off to his fiercest enemy, thinly cloaked by a dangerous ruse, Doricha must become a double agent if she hopes to survive. Caught between the Pharaoh and the Persian king Cambyses, it is Doricha—once a slave, now a woman of great but secret power—who will determine Egypt’s fate.

Blending ancient fable with true history, White Lotus brings Egypt’s downfall to life.

My Thoughts:

I don't know what it is with me and books about strong ladies breaking their way out of sex slavery (or at least making the best of their situation by manipulating powerful men), but this theme seems to stick with me, I enjoy these kinds of books a lot. 

"However great Iadmon deems my value, he cannot value me more than I do myself." 

In White Lotus we follow Doricha, a young girl who's sold to be a prona (the name for prostitutes at the time) because her family is starving. However, her fate turns to the better when her master starts seeing potential in her and instead of turning her into a common prona, he decides to train her to be a hetaera. 

Hetaerae were highly cultivated courtesans in ancient Greece and later when Greek culture seeped into Egypt these girls were present there too to provide intellectual as well as physical entertainment for wealthy men.

Doricha's story is interesting because there are twists and turns along the way that you don't expect (in the beginning she doesn't have much control over her fate, and you can't help but feel for her because of her vulnerable situation). The majority of the novel is about her training through which we see what a hetaera was supposed to do or not do in the company of men and what the hetaerae's attitude was like towards one another (you can expect a lot of intrigue).

I loved the historical setting and how it came to life through Libbie Hawker's words. The tension between Egyptians and Greek people was seething at the time (we are in the 6th century BC just before the Persian conquest). The streets were dangerous because the two parties were wont to provoke fights and Egyptians were extremely dissatisfied with the Pharaoh, Amasis II, who enthusiastically embraced the Greek traditions and culture.

In these uncertain times Doricha meets friends like Aesop, the cunning servant who mastered the art of manoeuvring from the background and she also has to face some foes who slyly betray an initially well-forming friendship.

Doricha is very young, by the end of the book she's only 14 but she's got a quick mind and adapts easily. She's a charming character and I can't wait to see how she matures into a strong woman who's not afraid to play the hard games of politics to earn her freedom. 

I should also mention here that Doricha later goes by the name Rhodopis, and according to my research in real life there was a hetaera with that name indeed, who is associated with the origins of the fairy tale Cinderella. How cool is that?

The only thing that could have been better in the book was the editing; unfortunately there were typos here and there... It didn't ruin the whole reading experience but still... I'd have preferred if there hadn't been any.

This book became a new favourite of mine, naturally I'll read the second book in the trilogy too.

Goodreads | Amazon

Next in the series:

Persian Rose

Review - A Shadowed Fate by Marty Ambrose

  Title: A Shadowed Fate (Claire Clairmont #2)

  Author: Marty Ambrose

  Publication Date: March 03, 2020

  Synopsis:

1873, Florence. Claire Clairmont, the last survivor of the 'haunted summer of 1816' Byron/Shelley circle, is reeling from the series of events triggered by the arrival of Michael Rosetti two weeks before, which culminated in a brutal murder and a shocking revelation from her old friend, Edward Trelawny.

Stunned by her betrayal at the hands of those closest to her, Claire determines to travel to the convent at Bagnacavallo near Ravenna to learn the true fate of Allegra, her daughter by Lord Byron. But the valuable Cades sketch given to her by Rosetti is stolen, and Claire soon finds herself shadowed at every turn and in increasing danger as she embarks on her quest. Is the theft linked to Allegra, and can Claire uncover what really happened in Ravenna so many years ago?

I received a free ebook copy of this book from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

My Thoughts:

I've been waiting for A Shadowed Fate for a long time and here it is at last. Marty Ambrose managed to pull me in with her first book in her Claire series so much, that in the past 1.5 years I've been checking and rechecking if there were any news about the second instalment. It hits the shelves shortly, and I received a copy on NetGalley, so here is what I think.

I flew through this novel as well as the first one. They are quite short  which is a shame. In ASF Claire is going on a road trip with her friend Trelawny and her small family in order to find out what happened to her daughter, Allegra, when she lived in the convent of Bagnacavallo. While on the road a dangerous stranger seems to be on their heels, and with Byron and Shelley's valuable letters in her pocket Claire has to look over her shoulder continuously if she wants to keep her loved ones safe.

Like in Claire's Last Secret, here we got glimpses into the past too, this time of Byron's years in Ravenna, when he supported the Carbonari's revolution for a united Italy. Through journal entries the reader gets caught up in a shoot-out at the fringe of a forest, where Byron is the target, and an equally heated situation on the streets of Ravenna, where once again, bullets fly low. It was an interesting addition to the book, because I've never really read much of this part of Byron's life before.

I also enjoyed the child Allegra's journal entries and was glad the author gave her a voice. I'm looking forward to read more of her story later.

Claire and Trelawny's relationship develops quite a lot in this novel and we hear more of the one night they spent together in the past. We are also given reasons why it never really worked out between the two and we are left with a big question mark regarding their future relationship. Another reason for me to want to read the third book.

Diving into Marty Ambrose's prose was easy, as if I had just finished the first book and picked up the second right after. She's got a very clear style and she makes you care and root for her characters. It still surprises me, but with some magic she makes me like Claire, while I've never really cared  much for her before.

Sign me up for the last book in the trilogy, I'm still in! 

Goodreads | Amazon 

Read my review of Claire's Last Secret here.

My first physical ARC!!!

Today I'd like to feature a book that is special to me becuase this is the first ARC I received in physical form. 

Christmas came early for me when Laurence Westwood was kind enough to send me a paperback copy of his novel The Balance of Heaven and Earth all the way from England. I immediately added this beauty to my January TBR.

Synopsis:

I have been unable to write a judgement that does not seem to offend my conscience, or indeed Heaven, in some manner. Because I do not wish to influence your thinking unduly, I have destroyed all my personal papers and notes in regard to this dispute, preferring you to start afresh. Forgive me for this. All I ask is that you consider and examine Jade Moon most carefully before coming to a decision. I find her fascinating and unsettling in equal measure, and fear the consequences of a wrongful judgement. I will say no more.

My sincerest best wishes to you and your family,

Magistrate Qian
Fifth District, Chengdu Prefecture
1st day of the 2nd Moon, 1085

So ends the letter of welcome (and of warning) to Magistrate Zhu, newly arrived in the remote border town of Tranquil Mountain. He has travelled far from his extensive family estates on the outskirts of Kaifeng – the glorious Song Dynasty capital – hoping to find atonement for past mistakes.

Yet he quickly discovers that Tranquil Mountain is anything but tranquil. The town is beset with simmering tensions since the death of his predecessor. Before Magistrate Zhu even has time to accustom himself to his inexperienced and wayward constabulary and the lowliness of his new surroundings, there is a mysterious murder, rumours of ghosts and blood-thirsty bandits out on the streets, and a disturbing kidnapping to solve – as well as the tragic and tangled legal circumstances of the local heroine Jade Moon to unravel.

For the balance of Heaven and Earth to be maintained, and to prevent catastrophe coming to Tranquil Mountain, Magistrate Zhu is well aware that not a single injustice can be allowed to stand. As he struggles to reach the correct judgements, he realises he has no choice but to offer up his career and perhaps even his own life for the greater good. And, in so doing, he discovers that as Jade Moon’s fate rests in his hands, so his fate ultimately rests in hers.  

Goodreads | Amazon

I haven't read many books set in China, let alone 11th century China, so I'm looking forward to dive into this mystery piece, which I'm sure will be a rare treat.

Review to come in January...

Review - Claire's Last Secret by Marty Ambrose

Title: Claire's Last Secret

Author: Marty Ambrose

Release date: September 1st, 2018

Synopsis:

1873, Florence. Claire Clairmont, the last survivor of the 'haunted summer of 1816' Byron/Shelley circle, is living out her final years in genteel poverty, but the appearance of British tourist, William Michael Rossetti, brings hope that she may be able to sell some of her memorabilia to earn enough cash to support her and her niece/companion, Paula.

But Rossetti's presence in Florence heralds a cycle of events that links the summer of 1816 - when Claire conceived an ill-fated child with George Gordon, Lord Byron, when Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, and when four tempestuous lives came together - to a tragic death. As Claire begins to unravel the truth, she must go back to that summer of passion to discover the identity of her old enemy.

I received a free ebook copy of this book from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

My Thoughts:

Claire's Last Secret is the first book in a trilogy that unrolls a mystery involving Claire's long lost daughter, Allegra. Claire Clairmont, Mary Shelley's half sister usually doesn't get much recognition when the creative group that spent the 'haunted summer' in Geneva is mentioned. It's little wonder actually, given that she was the only member of the party that didn't turn her experiences of that summer into a literary success.

However, in her novel Marty Ambrose wants to show us that despite the fact that she didn't produce anything lasting from a literary point of view, Claire was still as important part of the circle as any other member. According to the author she deserves to be remembered in a favourable light, as someone who inspired Byron and the Shelleys with her love and friendship.

I'll confess it was hard for me to think with the writer's head in the beginning, because I had my own picture of Claire, which wasn't exactly flattering. I've read several biographies of the Shelleys, and Claire has always come across as a pushy, somewhat annoying individual, who always wanted to be the centre of attention. It is rumoured she had an affair with Shelley as well, and if it's true, it was an awful betrayal towards Mary.

In Claire's Last Secret we meet a very different Claire though. In the book she is an old lady who remembers her youth and sees her youthful foolishness in a very reasonable light. She doesn't regret anything and she wouldn't change anything in her past. She accepts herself as she is; someone who is chiefly driven by her emotions. I think it's a pretty romantic notion that the heart leads a person's actions, not the head and this simple twist on the character of Claire made her foolish decisions a lot more acceptable for me.

The book is written in a lovely manner, it was a joy to read. It's always great to revisit the events in The Villa Diodati during 'the year without summer', but it's even better if the writing is exquisite. To take a boat trip with Byron and Shelley, to be there when Mary Shelley reads from Frankenstein for the first time.... ahh to be there... 

If you like the second generation of romantics, or know nothing of them, either way, this can be a fun read. I'll definitely pick up the second book.

Goodreads | Amazon

Book Beginnings and the Friday 56 #24

THE LATEST NEWS:

We have internet in the flat at last! Yay!! 

This means from now on I can blog whenever I'd like to and I'll post regularly again.

I hope all of you are well and your August has been going well so far!

Book Beginnings on Friday and The Friday 56 are weekly memes hosted by Rose City Reader and Freda's Voice.

Rules: 

Book Beginnings: Share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. 

The Friday 56: Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% in you eReader. Find any sentence (not spoilery) and reflect on it if you want.

Here's the book I've started this week:
 

Claire's Last Secret

by Marty Ambrose

Synopsis:

A tragic death leads Claire Clairmont to be haunted by her past and the 'summer of 1816' she shared with Byron and Shelley in this first in an intriguing new historical trilogy.

1873, Florence. Claire Clairmont, the last survivor of the 'haunted summer of 1816' Byron/Shelley circle, is living out her final years in genteel poverty, but the appearance of British tourist, William Michael Rossetti, brings hope that she may be able to sell some of her memorabilia to earn enough cash to support her and her niece/companion, Paula.

But Rossetti's presence in Florence heralds a cycle of events that links the summer of 1816 - when Claire conceived an ill-fated child with George Gordon, Lord Byron, when Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, and when four tempestuous lives came together - to a tragic death. As Claire begins to unravel the truth, she must go back to that summer of passion to discover the identity of her old enemy.

 Book Beginning:

His letter came just at the point when I thought death was my only option.

 I knew from the very first line I'd like this book.

The Friday 56:

Trelawny had organized the whole thing and, supposedly, reached into the fire to grasp Shelley's heart for Mary to keep forever.

Did you know this little trivia about the Shelleys? Supposedly Mary kept Percy's heart after his death... A suitable keepsake for the writer of Frankenstein is it not? 

What is your current read? How is your week going?

Happy Reading!

Review - The Stolen Girl by Zia Wesley

Title: The Stolen Girl (The Veil and the Crown #1)

Author: Zia Wesley

Synopsis:

The legend of Aimée Dubucq de Rivery, has survived on three continents for more than two hundred years. The Stolen Girl tells the first part of her extraordinary story, her adolescence on the Caribbean island of Martinique, and her voyage to Paris where her hopes of finding a husband are shattered. Resigned to live as an old maid at the ripe age of eighteen, she decides to become a nun and sets sail to visit her relatives on Martinique one last time. On the journey, she meets and falls in love with a dashing young Scotsman. But fate had other plans for Aimée, ones that were foretold by an African Obeah woman when she was fourteen years old.

My Thoughts:

I received a free ebook copy of this book from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The legend of Aimée Dubucq de Rivery is quite extraordinary. She was a distant cousin of Joséphine de Beuharnais (Empress Joséphine later) with whom she spent her childhood together on the island of Martinique. 

According to the story both their futures had been foretold by a wise obeah woman and everything she said came to pass up to the last detail. The woman had said they would both become queens one day. The teenage girls squealed and clapped taking in the thought first, but the rest of the tale the woman told them began to trouble them as time went by. It seems neither of them could avoid what fate had in store for them eventually.

Aimée's destiny didn't lie in Paris as she first wished and imagined, although after she visited the city she didn't mind it very much after all. She didn't become a nun either, no matter how much her young mind had pondered the idea. Instead she was abducted by Turkish pirates and was gifted to the Sultan to be the jewel of his seraglio (harem). Tough luck, you'd say. Well, according to Zia Wesley and her book Aimée didn't have a miserable life in the harem at all. Interestingly Aimée's new way of life suited her sensual nature, excited and challanged her at the same time. What a twist!

Obviously the tale told in this book is romanticized in the extreme. Not by the author only, but by many other storytellers before her and by history itself. We are talking about a legend (there are theories that say that Aimée died on sea when the ship she was travelling with sank), and legends are very often sweetened up as time goes by. Let's not forget that the original happenings of this story took place short before the romantic era, so yeah... rely on the people of the 19th century to come up with fantastic stories about a beautiful white girl who gets abducted by pirates and gets to live an actually very comfortable life in an exotic place among hundreds of naked women.

Anyway, I live for heavily romanticized fiction (it's a weakness of mine...) and therefore it felt like this book was written for me. There's a lot of adventure in it: Aimée is born in Martinique where she is friends with Joséphine, she goes to France, visits Paris, lives in a convent, gets stolen by pirates, is taken to Turkey to be put in a harem... So much travelling, so much danger, so much... fun! She is also a virgin and a deeply catholic girl and it is interesting how she sees the situations she ends up in. 

Aimée starts out as an extremely naive character. With her willingness to obey everyone and her obsession with religion made her a bit annoying first, however later I warmed up to her a lot because she learns and accomodates easily to whatever goes on around her. The way she slowly pushed her christianity in the background and took on muslim habits was a bit surprising however, given how much her earlier years were determined by the religion she grew up with. She doesn't turn away from God completely I guess (no one asks her in the harem to give up her religion and she is often troubled by how much what she is asked to do goes against the word of the Bible), but she makes a conscious decision to adopt to the new habits of the people around her in order to survive.

The writing flows so well, I was lost in the story. The exotic setting and the rich descriptions delighted me. There was a lot of research put in this project, you can feel it while reading the book. I learned a lot about how a harem functioned at the time, what the women had to do, what they weren't allowed to do, how their days passed there. It was very fascinating.

I'm grateful this novel drew my attention to Aimée and her connection to Joséphine. I'll definitely read the sequel to learn how Ms Wesley imagnes Aimée's story continued.

Goodreads | Amazon

Life Update and Goodreads Monday #14

 

As you might have noticed, I skipped my wrap-up post this past weekend. The reason is that my boyfriend came to visit and we could finally spend more than one day together (living in different cities sucks). On Saturday we watched Deadpool 2 in the cinema, had a good laugh during certain scenes and cooked lunch together afterwards. On Sunday we had a lazy day but we managed to book accomodation and plane tickets for our summer outing to London. Comic con, here we come!

Tomorrow I'm starting my new job with Travelliance. I'm a teeny tiny bit excited for that... I'll do my best running the blog the same way I have so far but let me say sorry in advance if in the first couple of weeks my posts will come in an erratic fashion. I'll have to come up with a comfortable schedule to make it work but I surely will.

A week went by since the last Timeless episode and there is still not one peep from NBC about the show's future. The ratings went up with the season finale, Clockblockers almost broke twitter on Sunday and still, there's no news from the network. It makes me worried and angry sometimes because it's not fair towards those who work on the show and towards fans either. I apologize if you follow me on twitter and see my daily #SaveTimeless tweets but I'm serious about wanting to help save this show. You know how much I love history and this show makes a good job gathering and conveying unknown facts to the viewers, which is only one of the reasons why I'm obsessed with it. I refuse to give up on Timeless and I'm letting NBC know that ever day.

 

I'm a bit behind myself with my May reading schedule but hey, what's new? I'm currently reading Clowders by Vanessa Morgan, which is my first horror novel since December last year, when I read and loved Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot. Clowders is too slow-burning for my liking so far and not as scary as I expected it to be, though I'm only half-way through so my opinion can still change if the plot thickens a bit.

And now, onto my customary GoodReads Monday post...

Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Lauren @ Lauren’s Page Turners. To participate, choose a random book from your TBR and show it off! Don’t forget to link back to Lauren’s Page Turners and link up to the inlinkz so others can see what you picked!

I think it's time I got acquainted with Hamilton the musical (I've heard a lot about it but never listened to the soundtrack) and the story behind it too. It seems the following book could be a nice companion to the musical:

My Dear Hamilton

by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie

Synopsis:

A novel of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton

A general's daughter...

Coming of age on the perilous frontier of revolutionary New York, Elizabeth Schuyler champions the fight for independence. And when she meets Alexander Hamilton, Washington's penniless but passionate aide-de-camp, she's captivated by the young officer's charisma and brilliance. They fall in love, despite Hamilton's bastard birth and the uncertainties of war.

A founding father's wife...

But the union they create - in their marriage and the new nation - is far from perfect. From glittering inaugural balls to bloody street riots, the Hamiltons are at the center of it all - including the political treachery of America's first sex scandal, which forces Eliza to struggle through heartbreak and betrayal to find forgiveness.

The last surviving light of the Revolution...

When a duel destroys Eliza's hard-won peace, the grieving widow fights her husband's enemies to preserve Alexander's legacy. But long-buried secrets threaten everything Eliza believes about her marriage and her own legacy. Questioning her tireless devotion to the man and country that have broken her heart, she's left with one last battle - to understand the flawed man she married and imperfect union he could never have created without her...

 Which book are you dying to read right now? Let me know in a comment below!

Review - Nothing But Sky by Amy Trueblood

Title: Nothing But Sky

Author: Amy Trueblood

Publication Date: March 27th, 2018

Synopsis:

Grace Lafferty only feels alive when she's dangling 500 feet above ground. As a post-World War I wing walker, Grace is determined to get to the World Aviation Expo, proving her team’s worth against flashier competitors and earning a coveted Hollywood contract.

No one’s ever questioned Grace’s ambition until Henry Patton, a mechanic with plenty of scars from the battlefield, joins her barnstorming team. With each new death-defying trick, Henry pushes Grace to consider her reasons for being a daredevil. Annoyed with Henry’s constant interference, and her growing attraction to him, Grace continues to test the powers of the sky.

After one of her risky maneuvers saves a pilot’s life, a Hollywood studio offers Grace a chance to perform at the Expo. She jumps at the opportunity to secure her future. But when a stunt goes wrong, Grace must decide whether Henry, and her life, are worth risking for one final trick.

My Thoughts: 

I received a free ebook copy of this book from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

"Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace." 

Amelia Earhart

Wohoo, I found a gem, you guys. Don't y'all love reading about topics that are relatively new to you? I know I do. I've heard about wing walkers, but other than that I didn't know much about barnstorming before picking up this book. I'm so glad I did because not only could I travel to my favourite decade in the 20th century, I also got to learn about an interesting form of entertainment that captured many Americans' heart after the Great War.

Grace Lafferty is one of the coolest heroines ever, I'm telling you. She's a real daredevil, a sucker for adrenaline and she is fighting for what she loves with unwavering persistence. There are two things she wants to keep at all costs: her barnstorming family and the sky. If they don't make it to the World Aviation Expo she might just lose both. To avoid that end she does everything she is capable to: she practices her stunts all day, she saves money on whatever she can, she is even ready to abide the presence of Henry Patton, the team's new grumpy mechanic.

The strong theme of family and love in the book is heartwarming and most of the characters are not even related to one another. The brother/sister relationship between Grace and Daniel – the male wing walker in the team – is so pure, I melted every time they had a conversation. I also loved how Grace's presence in Uncle Warren's life slowly moulded the man into a more than decent father figure.

Beyond the family feels what made this novel extremely worthwhile for me were the little stories and details that adorned and rounded out the storytelling. Most men in the book had fought in the trenches just a couple of years before, which means the horrors of the war are still very fresh in their minds. Henry is affected the most, he's definitely suffering from shell shock. Grace doesn't know what that is of course, but she realizes something is not right with him and she is determined to make him open up to her. And so he tells her stories. My favourite was the one where Henry saved the life of his men by teaching a memeber of the enemy to dance.

The feminine power in the book is incredible. Bessie Coleman – the first black woman ever to gain a pilot licence – makes an appearance. I was so happy to learn more about her! She was quite a character and it's always a pleasure to read about women pioneers. Grace, of course, is also a character who bends society rules and follows her own mind; she wears pants and oil-stained shirts and doesn't give a damn what others think of her often manly ways. Oh, how I loved that!

The atmosphere of the 1920s seep through the pages: the clothes, old Hollywood, bootlegging, the Spanish flu, it's all there. Nothing But Sky will transport you right there, you'll feel as if you time travelled to Gatsby's age.

To sum up, this novel was a real joy to read and there are no words how much I recommend it to everyone who likes historical fiction and is just a tiny bit interested in aviation history!

Goodreads | Amazon

Review - How to Hang a Witch by Adriana Mather

Title: How to Hang a Witch (How to Hang a Witch #1)

Author: Adriana Mather

Synopsis:

Salem, Massachusetts is the site of the infamous witch trials and the new home of Samantha Mather. Recently transplanted from New York City, Sam and her stepmother are not exactly welcomed with open arms. Sam is the descendant of Cotton Mather, one of the men responsible for those trials and almost immediately, she becomes the enemy of a group of girls who call themselves The Descendants. And guess who their ancestors were?

If dealing with that weren't enough, Sam also comes face to face with a real live (well technically dead) ghost. A handsome, angry ghost who wants Sam to stop touching his stuff. But soon Sam discovers she is at the center of a centuries old curse affecting anyone with ties to the trials. Sam must come to terms with the ghost and find a way to work with the Descendants to stop a deadly cycle that has been going on since the first accused witch was hanged. If any town should have learned its lesson, it's Salem. But history may be about to repeat itself.

My Thoughts:

"As all of you know," says Mr. Wardwell, "when citizens of Salem were convicted of witchcraft in 1692, they were sentenced to hang. Witchcraft was a capital crime, and people believed that if they killed the individuals practicing it, they could keep the devil from taking root in their communities."

Holy moly, have I just found my favourite YA book of the year?? Of course there's always a chance there'll be competition but at the moment I doubt I'll soon come across another young adult novel that will capture my attention as much as How to Hang a Witch did.

Adriana Mather (an actual descendant of Cotton Mather, a man who played an important role in kick-starting the trials) draws a clear parallel between what happened to those poor women in 1692 and modern day bullying. While she provides plenty of information about the trials, she also gives us a modern tale that we are all sadly familiar with; Samantha is tormented by her peers at school as well as by an unknown antagonist.

Samantha Mather moves to Salem with her step-mom after her dad falls into a coma. Her last name doesn't really help her win the heart of the locals (she always ends up in situations where people ask for her family name. – Let the girl get a library card without having to suffer your reproving looks FGS, people!). She especially clashes with a group of girls who call themselves 'The Descendants' and treat Sam as enemy no.1 from the first moment she steps into class.

I absolutely enjoyed this old-new setting, this mixture of past and present. The Descendants, the great-great-great (?) granddaughters of the women who were hanged back in the 17th century, wear black clothes and practice strange rituals. I didn't think actual witchcraft would be present in the novel, but it was, and not only did it manage to make the plot all the more colourful, it also added the feel of real danger to the story.

Not only the former and present inhabitants of Salem came off the pages but the city itself too. The places Samantha visits are described vividly. Some of these are dark and menacing, those were my personal favourites (the black house, the hanging location...). In the Author's note Ms Mather writes about her first visit to Salem, when she found accommodation in a mansion that was roumored to be haunted. Her spooky experiences in the town are just as much woven into her book as the past of her family, which just makes How to Hang a Witch all the more fascinating.

The plot was really well done, the author showed us masterfully how group hysteria works inside a community. The fact that even the adults appeared to hate and blame Sam for the suddenly high mortality rate in Salem was shocking (I'm looking at you, Mr Wardwell!). Towards the end things seemed to be a bit rushed for no reason, but eventually everything got wrapped up nicely.

If you've heard about How to Hang a Witch before, you probably already know that there is a love triangle and if I also let you know here that Sam is a clumsy teenager with no verbal filter you will see that the book has its general YA novel traps. Because... *shouts* We've seen it before! But hey, I promise you'll fall for Elijah, the ghost boy with a heart-breaking past, and he spends an awful lot of time around Sam so... (Just pretend Jaxon doesn't exist, shhhhh). Okay, I'll stop before I go into full fangirl mode... What I wanted to say is that I wasn't bothered by the love triangle this time.

I also loved that the story involved strong family ties that were worth to fight for. 

"It is the greatest evil of all, to separate people who love each other."

I could get carried away and write pages about this novel but I don't think it's necessary in order to convince you that I totally fell in love with How to Hang a Witch. I'll pick up the second book, Haunting the Deep, soon to see how Sam's adventures continue.

Goodreads | Amazon