What I read this March
My Man Jeeves, PG Wodehouse. Jeeves and Wooster are adorable, but unfortunately only half the book is about them. The other half is a series of short stories told by Pepper, a Woosterish character without Wooster 's inexplicable charm.
Miss Hartwell’s Dilemma, Carola Dunn. A charming Regency romance. Miss Amaryllis Hartwell was a beautiful society maiden with many admirers and a besotted fiance. But after her father eloped to America , leaving her destitute, she chose to open a girls' finishing school rather than marry her fiance or move in with relatives. Six years later, the school is doing very well and Miss Hartwell has almost put from her mind the dizzy society she left. But when first one handsome Regency buck, then another, leaves their wards under her care, she is reminded of her past.
The hard work of running a school and the friendships therein take up most of the book. Amaryllis is a well-rounded character, but so are her Bible-quoting former governess, her fashionable aunt, and the young girls in their charge. Although the book is titled "a romance of Regency England," the love interests are merely the frame for the characters' growth. I was quite impressed with this book; I actually enjoyed it more than several of the lesser Heyer novels. There is a hint of sexuality that is missing from Heyer, and Dunn avoids overusing Regency slang.
Sleep Is For the Weak, ed Rita Arens. A collection of short essays about motherhood. Some are funnier than others, but none are total losers.
Spirit Gate, Kate Elliott. I wanted to like this book more than I actually did. Elliott has created numerous societies, each with their own distinct gender roles, politics, religion, food, etc. The societies and people are clearly all non-Western--they wear silk, eat yogurt, have brown hair and skin. There are POV characters from each of the big three (the Qin, the Hundred, and the Sirnakian Empire), and no one country or society is painted as morally better than the others.
BUT. Elliott spends so much time building her world (and seriously, she describes every town, every wharf, every meal) that even by the end of the book there were huge plot holes and I still didn't love any of the characters. The basic plot is that some sort of shadowy menace is slowly inciting chaos in the Hundred while slowly destroying the eagle reeves (people psychically bonded to giant eagles who fly around mediating disputes). Merchant Mai and her new husband Anji, the captain of the Qin army that conquered her homeland, travel into the Hundred in search of a new home. Emo reeve Joss tries to figure out why his homeland is descending into lawlessness. Their paths only cross near the end of the novel.
This wasn't a bad novel, but I'm not interested enough to read the next in the series.
Ironside, Holly Black. Ironside follows shortly after the events of Tithe and Valiant. Roiben was a loyal knight of the Seelie Queen, even after she sent him to serve her sister, the Queen of the Unseelie Court . After countless years of torment and cruelty, he brought about the Unseelie Queen's death and now presides over her court. At his coronation, he sets an impossible quest for his lover, the pixie Kaye, to keep her safe from the war between the courts. Of course Kaye will have none of this romantic nonsense, and pledges to fulfill his quest. Meanwhile, Kaye's bff Corny is dealing with the rage and self-loathing left behind by his enthrallment and his sister's death.
This book feels so genuine. The characters are each and every one of them fully fleshed out--Corny is particularly real. The fey courts and the human world (aka "Ironside") are described with a precise poetry. Unlike Emma Bull's War for the Oaks or say, Poppy Z Brite's Lost Souls, the descriptions of the fey and the punked out humans never feel like wish-fulfillment. The entire book is about negotiating with power or a lack thereof, trying to come to terms with an untenable situation and new, uncomfortable knowledge about oneself. I loved it! I read the entire book in about an hour.
Blood Engines, TA Pratt. Marla Mason has a problem. She may be the most powerful sorcerer in her city, but she has only days until a rival deletes her from existance. She and her faithful sidekick Rondeau (actually a parasitic spirit riding a chance-met human) travel to San Francisco to use the Cornerstone, a block of incredibly powerful magic. Getting the Cornerstone will be difficult--suriving San Francisco may be impossible. Sorcerers, gods, and technomages stand in Marla's way, and a fanatical priest of Tlaltecuhtli seeks to destroy the world.
This was an odd book, because the story begins very much in media res. Marla is far from a blank slate or a new to sorcery, and she's had years to build up allies and mortal enemies. The backstories were written a little clunkily, but I was glad to see them--I love complications and contradictions. Although the story takes place exclusively in San Francisco , Marla and Rondeau's reactions to another city tell the reader a great deal about their own city, Felport. The magics are ingenious and often inventive: one sorcerer lives on a train perpetually going widdershins, another operates under the principle that reality is a computer simulation of the past. Although the writing is a little rough, the action is exciting and Marla a great protagonist. Anyone who enjoyed early Laurell K Hamilton or Kelly Armstrong should give this book a try. (Note: this is not in the least paranormal romance.) Can be read online for free here.
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman. "There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife."
So begins Gaiman's latest, the thrilling tale of a young boy raised in a graveyard by its denizens. This is a great piece of writing. Gaiman has a true talent for creating communities and individuals as idiosyncratic as they are believable. The adventure is great--easily the most exciting story Gaiman has written. The characters are absolutely fantastic, and never devolve into stereotypes (a hard thing to do, when your characters are ghosts, vampires, witches and Mowgli). My one and only caveat is that I was frustrated to read the ol' "she couldn't possibly handle the supernatural, so let's wipe her memory" trope. haaaate. That aside, this is a fantastic story.
Contraception and Abortion in 19th Century America, Jeanette Farrell Brodie. This is a comprehensive, detailed analysis of family planning in nineteenth-century America . Sadly, I found it just too detailed for me--I managed to read less than 1/3rd over a *month*. The book is larded with minutia, much of it fascinating. (One man sued his wife for douching with cold water after sex, which he claimed was aborting their children!) For anyone who wants a historical perspective on contraception and abortion, this is a great resource and a good book to read.
The Law and the Lady, Wilkie Collins. Collins writes like low-rent Dickens crossed with Trollop. He loves creating quirky characters and writing satirically and judgementally about them. He is addicted to unnecessary hystrionics and suspense--an entire chapter will just be one character warning another of the SHOCKING news they are about to impart. Then, just as they are finally going to tell the truth, the chapter ends. Even worse, the Shocking Truth is always something completely petty and anticlimatic.
The story is told by Valeria, a young and pretty woman of good birth and excellent character. She is astounded when she learns her new husband married her under an assumed name. MINOR SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT. She rapidly discovers that several years before, he was accused of murdering his first wife--and never cleared of the crime. When he hears of her discovery, he flees the country and will not let her contact him. Valeria decides that the only way to regain her husband is to discover the true poisoner, and clear Eustace's name.
I am used to anti-non-Protestant, sexist, and racist view points polluting Victorian narratives. The usual tropes are at work here--but so is an extreme prejudice against the differently abled. One of the main characters, Dexter, was born with no legs, and his cousin is "an idiot." Every single time they appear, they are described in the most disgusting and bigoted terms--Dexter is described as grotesque, a Thing, an It, a monkey...When he tries to participate in the murder investigation, a preeminent doctor is summoned to examine him, and concludes that he will inevitably go mad or imbecilic--at any moment! I was shocked by the unfair treatment of these characters. I had some hope that Collins was brutal to Dexter to showcase needless, baseless prejudice. My idealism was dashed in chapter 40, when he goes mad because of how evil and unnatural he is: "nothing but a mute, vacant face turned up to the ceiling, with eyes that looked blindly, with lips parted in a senseless, changeless grin...Even the horror of that fearful sight seemed only to increase the pity that I felt for the stricken wretch." Um, screw you, Collins.
Mystery spoiling SPOILERS!
Dexter proves to have hounded Eustace's first wife into reading her husband's diary. She was so shocked and hurt when she realized that he did not love her, that she killed *herself* with arsenic. Dexter wanted to protect her memory and harm Eustace, so he destroyed her suicide letter. Valeria's investigation uncovers fragments of the letter, and her friends piece them together. Dexter dies of being mad (?) and his cousin Ariel throws herself on his grave and dies of exposure. Meanwhile, Valeria tells her husband of the discovery of his first wife's suicide note. She councils him not to read it, so his wife's reputation will remain untouched. They leave the suicide note for their infant son when he grows up.
This is crazy, right? Why not take care of the unproved murder trial now, and by the time the kid grows up it will be a non-issue? In a decade or two, no one will remember that a woman completely unrelated to him committed suicide. Instead, Valeria and Eustace decide to be martyrs, and even worse, force their son to make the decision they themselves chose not to make. And THIS is supposed to be the Right Thing To Do. Victorians, you are messed in the head.
Miss Hartwell’s Dilemma, Carola Dunn. A charming Regency romance. Miss Amaryllis Hartwell was a beautiful society maiden with many admirers and a besotted fiance. But after her father eloped to America , leaving her destitute, she chose to open a girls' finishing school rather than marry her fiance or move in with relatives. Six years later, the school is doing very well and Miss Hartwell has almost put from her mind the dizzy society she left. But when first one handsome Regency buck, then another, leaves their wards under her care, she is reminded of her past.
The hard work of running a school and the friendships therein take up most of the book. Amaryllis is a well-rounded character, but so are her Bible-quoting former governess, her fashionable aunt, and the young girls in their charge. Although the book is titled "a romance of Regency England," the love interests are merely the frame for the characters' growth. I was quite impressed with this book; I actually enjoyed it more than several of the lesser Heyer novels. There is a hint of sexuality that is missing from Heyer, and Dunn avoids overusing Regency slang.
Sleep Is For the Weak, ed Rita Arens. A collection of short essays about motherhood. Some are funnier than others, but none are total losers.
Spirit Gate, Kate Elliott. I wanted to like this book more than I actually did. Elliott has created numerous societies, each with their own distinct gender roles, politics, religion, food, etc. The societies and people are clearly all non-Western--they wear silk, eat yogurt, have brown hair and skin. There are POV characters from each of the big three (the Qin, the Hundred, and the Sirnakian Empire), and no one country or society is painted as morally better than the others.
BUT. Elliott spends so much time building her world (and seriously, she describes every town, every wharf, every meal) that even by the end of the book there were huge plot holes and I still didn't love any of the characters. The basic plot is that some sort of shadowy menace is slowly inciting chaos in the Hundred while slowly destroying the eagle reeves (people psychically bonded to giant eagles who fly around mediating disputes). Merchant Mai and her new husband Anji, the captain of the Qin army that conquered her homeland, travel into the Hundred in search of a new home. Emo reeve Joss tries to figure out why his homeland is descending into lawlessness. Their paths only cross near the end of the novel.
This wasn't a bad novel, but I'm not interested enough to read the next in the series.
Ironside, Holly Black. Ironside follows shortly after the events of Tithe and Valiant. Roiben was a loyal knight of the Seelie Queen, even after she sent him to serve her sister, the Queen of the Unseelie Court . After countless years of torment and cruelty, he brought about the Unseelie Queen's death and now presides over her court. At his coronation, he sets an impossible quest for his lover, the pixie Kaye, to keep her safe from the war between the courts. Of course Kaye will have none of this romantic nonsense, and pledges to fulfill his quest. Meanwhile, Kaye's bff Corny is dealing with the rage and self-loathing left behind by his enthrallment and his sister's death.
This book feels so genuine. The characters are each and every one of them fully fleshed out--Corny is particularly real. The fey courts and the human world (aka "Ironside") are described with a precise poetry. Unlike Emma Bull's War for the Oaks or say, Poppy Z Brite's Lost Souls, the descriptions of the fey and the punked out humans never feel like wish-fulfillment. The entire book is about negotiating with power or a lack thereof, trying to come to terms with an untenable situation and new, uncomfortable knowledge about oneself. I loved it! I read the entire book in about an hour.
Blood Engines, TA Pratt. Marla Mason has a problem. She may be the most powerful sorcerer in her city, but she has only days until a rival deletes her from existance. She and her faithful sidekick Rondeau (actually a parasitic spirit riding a chance-met human) travel to San Francisco to use the Cornerstone, a block of incredibly powerful magic. Getting the Cornerstone will be difficult--suriving San Francisco may be impossible. Sorcerers, gods, and technomages stand in Marla's way, and a fanatical priest of Tlaltecuhtli seeks to destroy the world.
This was an odd book, because the story begins very much in media res. Marla is far from a blank slate or a new to sorcery, and she's had years to build up allies and mortal enemies. The backstories were written a little clunkily, but I was glad to see them--I love complications and contradictions. Although the story takes place exclusively in San Francisco , Marla and Rondeau's reactions to another city tell the reader a great deal about their own city, Felport. The magics are ingenious and often inventive: one sorcerer lives on a train perpetually going widdershins, another operates under the principle that reality is a computer simulation of the past. Although the writing is a little rough, the action is exciting and Marla a great protagonist. Anyone who enjoyed early Laurell K Hamilton or Kelly Armstrong should give this book a try. (Note: this is not in the least paranormal romance.) Can be read online for free here.
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman. "There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife."
So begins Gaiman's latest, the thrilling tale of a young boy raised in a graveyard by its denizens. This is a great piece of writing. Gaiman has a true talent for creating communities and individuals as idiosyncratic as they are believable. The adventure is great--easily the most exciting story Gaiman has written. The characters are absolutely fantastic, and never devolve into stereotypes (a hard thing to do, when your characters are ghosts, vampires, witches and Mowgli). My one and only caveat is that I was frustrated to read the ol' "she couldn't possibly handle the supernatural, so let's wipe her memory" trope. haaaate. That aside, this is a fantastic story.
Contraception and Abortion in 19th Century America, Jeanette Farrell Brodie. This is a comprehensive, detailed analysis of family planning in nineteenth-century America . Sadly, I found it just too detailed for me--I managed to read less than 1/3rd over a *month*. The book is larded with minutia, much of it fascinating. (One man sued his wife for douching with cold water after sex, which he claimed was aborting their children!) For anyone who wants a historical perspective on contraception and abortion, this is a great resource and a good book to read.
The Law and the Lady, Wilkie Collins. Collins writes like low-rent Dickens crossed with Trollop. He loves creating quirky characters and writing satirically and judgementally about them. He is addicted to unnecessary hystrionics and suspense--an entire chapter will just be one character warning another of the SHOCKING news they are about to impart. Then, just as they are finally going to tell the truth, the chapter ends. Even worse, the Shocking Truth is always something completely petty and anticlimatic.
The story is told by Valeria, a young and pretty woman of good birth and excellent character. She is astounded when she learns her new husband married her under an assumed name. MINOR SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT. She rapidly discovers that several years before, he was accused of murdering his first wife--and never cleared of the crime. When he hears of her discovery, he flees the country and will not let her contact him. Valeria decides that the only way to regain her husband is to discover the true poisoner, and clear Eustace's name.
I am used to anti-non-Protestant, sexist, and racist view points polluting Victorian narratives. The usual tropes are at work here--but so is an extreme prejudice against the differently abled. One of the main characters, Dexter, was born with no legs, and his cousin is "an idiot." Every single time they appear, they are described in the most disgusting and bigoted terms--Dexter is described as grotesque, a Thing, an It, a monkey...When he tries to participate in the murder investigation, a preeminent doctor is summoned to examine him, and concludes that he will inevitably go mad or imbecilic--at any moment! I was shocked by the unfair treatment of these characters. I had some hope that Collins was brutal to Dexter to showcase needless, baseless prejudice. My idealism was dashed in chapter 40, when he goes mad because of how evil and unnatural he is: "nothing but a mute, vacant face turned up to the ceiling, with eyes that looked blindly, with lips parted in a senseless, changeless grin...Even the horror of that fearful sight seemed only to increase the pity that I felt for the stricken wretch." Um, screw you, Collins.
Mystery spoiling SPOILERS!
Dexter proves to have hounded Eustace's first wife into reading her husband's diary. She was so shocked and hurt when she realized that he did not love her, that she killed *herself* with arsenic. Dexter wanted to protect her memory and harm Eustace, so he destroyed her suicide letter. Valeria's investigation uncovers fragments of the letter, and her friends piece them together. Dexter dies of being mad (?) and his cousin Ariel throws herself on his grave and dies of exposure. Meanwhile, Valeria tells her husband of the discovery of his first wife's suicide note. She councils him not to read it, so his wife's reputation will remain untouched. They leave the suicide note for their infant son when he grows up.
This is crazy, right? Why not take care of the unproved murder trial now, and by the time the kid grows up it will be a non-issue? In a decade or two, no one will remember that a woman completely unrelated to him committed suicide. Instead, Valeria and Eustace decide to be martyrs, and even worse, force their son to make the decision they themselves chose not to make. And THIS is supposed to be the Right Thing To Do. Victorians, you are messed in the head.