March Madness - finally another roundup

February is always a long month and this year's was no exception. But, we are just over 3 weeks away from the equinox and I can already feel my equilibrium being restored and my fingers have beeen itching to tell you about what I've been reading.

Mysteries

Black Diamond, by Martin Walker - #3 in this marvelous mystery series set in the Dordogne in France and featuring the lovely Bruno as police force of one in a little village in France where he cooks for his friends, hangs out with his dog, and tries his best to keep the peace. In this story, we get a glimpse of the rival Vietnamese and Chinese immigrants who compete for business, both the legal and the illegal kind. I love these books because they aren't just edge-of-your seat stories but provide historical, cultural, and regional sidestories that I like as much, if not more, than the actual mystery plot.

The Madness of Crowds, by Louise Penny - I enjoyed State of Terror (the co-authored thriller by Hillary Rodham and Louise Penny) so much that I just wanted more of Penny and Armand Gamache and Three Pines, so I read #17 in her wonderful series. It was excellent, of course, and delved with the aftermath of Covid and the ethics involved in medical decisions. This is the first novel I've read that references Covid, and I thought Penny handled the subject deftly.

Raven Black, by Ann Cleeves - I've been enjoying this prolific author's Matthew Venn series so much that I thought I would read some of her other series. My library had this one handy, so now I am reading her Shetland series. It was absolutely excellent with many of my favorite elements: small, tight community with secrets, harsh but compelling environment (the Shetland islands are not for the feeble), and well-written plot that kept me guessing until the end.

The Lost Man, by Jane Harper - I've enjoyed Harper's Aaron Falk series, but this was head and shoulders above them. An absolutely outstanding thriller about life in the outback of Australia. Again, love those harsh environments with a closed, tight community carrying a load of baggage and secrets. Harper did an outstanding job painting a stiflingly hot, pressure-cooker story that had a glorious ending. 

Not Mysteries

A Civil Contract, by Georgette Heyer - my JASNA bookclub is reading Heyer for our March meeting, and my friend Maxene recommended this Regency Romance as a bit atypical with a hero and heroine cut from different cloths than the usual Heyer fare. I loved it--absolutely loved it. Adam is a spare whose older brother manages to die, making him the heir, and then his father dies leaving him a mountain of debt. The solution? That's right--accept the civil contract offered by a parevenu who wants his plain daughter to marry a lord. I loved practical, sweet Jenny who tries hard to make Adam happy, and I especially loved her dad, Mr. Chawleigh, who is the definitive bull in a chinashop but with a heart as big as his bank account. The side characters were interesting and added zest to the story. All in all, a wonderful way to get through the doldrums of February.

The Maid, by Nita Prose - another out-of-the-park novel. Loved it so much. Molly Gray, the hotel maid cum detective, has a very literal approach to life, not unlike Elizabeth Zott in Lesssons in Chemistry and Elinor Oliphant. It's frustrating to watch her not "get it" but then marvelous when the penny finally drops and she sees her way clear. Her moral compass is finely polished and this was a fun, interesting read. I believe this is Prose's debut novel, so I am eager to see what she does next.

Celebrating Pride and Prejudice: 200 Years of Jane Austen's Masterpiece, by Susannah Fullerton - I gave this 3 stars on GoodReads mostly because I loved the first half and was bored to skimming in the second half. The first half retold the tale as old as time of how P&P came to be published and the impact its publication made on the oh-so-short life of Austen, and then she dived into commentary about all the major and minor characters, which was fun to read, insightful, and just like a JASNA meeting. The second half explored the various translations, adaptations, sequels, prequels, and Austenmania ad nauseum. I think the book would have garnered another star had it been shorter. Short books can still be good and sell...just saying.

White Teeth, by Zadie Smith - I've heard of this book for years but wouldn't have picked it up and read it without it being the selection of  the GoodReads True Book Talk group. It is a story of life in London during the 1970s to the turn of the millenium, focusing on the lives of Archie and his Jamaican-born wife, Clare, and Samad (an immigrant from Bangladesh) and his wife Alsana, and their children. I just found out that there is a four-part mini-series available on Amazon, so I might watch it. The book was excellent and thought-provoking.

Hope you are all well, discovering great books to explore, and finding your own equilibrium as we approach the equinox. That's something we can all celebrate, worldwide.

A Christmas Party (Envious Casca) - Georgette Heyer

I first read Envious Casca, a 1941 contemporary closed-room murder mystery, in 2010. I just finished a reread, not because I loved the book but because the GoodReads TrueBookTalk group was reading it this December and joining in for a reread would 1) enable me to participate with a group I enjoy but have been woefully absent from this year, 2) enable me to rack up another Back to the Classics book for the 2022 challenge, which I have been woefully neglectful of this year, and 3) enable me to inch closer to completing my GoodReads goal of 55 books in 2022.

Envious Casca is also published under the title A Christmas Party, which I think is a better title--more appealing and less esoteric, and I am always looking for good, non-schmaltzy holiday books for December reading.

The setting is pure Agatha Christie--a collection of people, some related, some not, but most are ill-tempered and chock full of motives for murdering the poor rich guy who ends up murdered in a locked room. I was about one-quarter into the book and not remembering it at all before I had a pretty good idea of who did the murder but not how. Even by the time I reached the end and the various clues starting falling into place I didn't recall exactly how the murder was done, which is always a plus. 

This is a great book for book lovers as...spoiler alert...a book does play a major role in the solving of the mystery.

It's not the best mystery out there, nor the best Christmas-themed book around, and I think Georgette Heyer was much better at Regency Romances than Christie-esque murder mysteries, but it was a fun 3-star read.

I hereby designate Envious Casca (aka A Christmas Party) by Georgette Heyer as my Wild Card book for the 2022 Back to the Classics Challenge. That puts me at only five for the year, but I am working on Winds of War by Herman Wouk and might finish it by December 31 at midnight! Wish me luck. I also have a bird puzzle to finish (with only white pieces left), a book on weaving to study so that I can start using the tabletop loom I got for Christmas, and zillion other odds and ends that need to be done before we ring in the New Year.

Happy New Year, friends, and stay warm/cool and safe, and happy reading!

Wrapping up Fall Reading

I'm just wrapping up my Fall reading before diving into Holiday books, so here's a quickie look at what I read this Fall.

I Am the Chosen King, by Helen Hollick - read this one with the GoodReads True Book Talk Group. November was historical fiction month, and while this wasn't the book I voted for, I really enjoyed it. It's about Harold II, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, who was defeated by William the Bastard in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings. Having visited Bayeaux last summer and viewed the Bayeaux Tapestry and listened to the French side of the story, it was a story fresh in my mind and was cool because I had visited many of the places in Normandy mentioned in the book. It was well-written and detailed and covered a period of history that I want to learn more about.

An Infamous Army, by Georgette Heyer - this was my second time listening to the audio version of this incredible book. It is a mashup of a Regency Romance and a very detailed narrative of the Battle of Waterloo, with definite overtones of Vanity Fair. I really need to read it next time with a map in hand because listening to it in the car means I can't research all the place names. Thoroughly enjoyable, though.

Varina, by Charles Frazier - an exceptionally creative and well-written novel about Varina Davis, wife of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and the African-American child who was part of her household during the Civil War but who was taken from her when the Union Army captured the Davises after Richmond fell. Varina reminded me of Frazier's Cold Mountain in that both books are journeys--in Cold Mountain, Inman is going home after the Civil War whereas Varina is fleeing Richmond and trying to reach Florida so she can escape to Cuba. One of the best books I read this year.  Now, I am very eager to read A Diary from Dixie, by Mary Chesnut, who was one of Varina's closest friends before, during, and after the war.

To Die but Once, by Jacqueline Winspear - the most recent (#14) in the excellent Maisie Dobbs series. I love these books, always listen to them as the actress is so good who reads them. It's set during the Dunkirk evacuation, and is an absolutely first-rate mystery. Loved it!

The Caves of Perigord, by Martin Walker - I really wanted to visited the Dordogne region of France on my trip last summer so I could go to the Lascaux caves, but I just couldn't fit it in. So, I did the next best thing...read a novel about the region. Martin Walker writes lovely mysteries set in the Dordogne region, but this one was a stand-alone that bounced between pre-historic times when the cave paintings were done, WWII (when British, American, and French soldiers were prepping for D-Day and encounter the caves), and modern-day (when a fragment of one of the paintings is part of theft). It was okay--I loved the pre-historic story about how the paintings were done, what they meant--all conjecture, of course, but fun to read. The WWII part was also good, but the modern-day was pretty weak in terms of story and characters.

At Home: A Short History of Private Life, by Bill Bryson - another second listening of this favorite book. All about how the stuff we take for granted--light, toilets, kitchens, essentially everything in a house including its structure--came to be.  I love listening to Bryson read his own works.

Drums of Autumn, by Diana Gabaldon - I'm 75% done with this reread, which I am doing while watching season 4 of Outlander. I'm a fan of the whole series and never tire of reading about the adventures of Clarie and Jamie and their family that literally spans the centuries. Gives new meaning to the term "extended family."

Now, on to Holiday reading!

An Infamous Army

I've been reading Georgette Heyer regencies for awhile now. I have read a respectable number, and reread a couple (The Reluctant Widow and Cotillion), but still have a fair number to get through before I can claim to have read them all.

Without a doubt, An Infamous Army is the best of the bunch. I loved the history, I loved the characters (even though Barbara Childe--aka Bab--is not really the kind of heroine I usually like), and I liked how the story ultimately worked out...not your typical romance but definitely not your typical account of the Battle of Waterloo.

I was completely blown away by Heyer's ability to paint such incredibly vivid pictures of the various international troops that converged on Brussells in the days leading up to the battle and the sights, sounds, and smells of them marching off to war and then straggling back.

I also loved experiencing the craft that Heyer displayed in her treatment of the historical characters, in particular the Duke of Wellington. She seamlessly and naturally told his backstory and integrated his documented words into dialogue at parties, during strategy sessions, and on the battlefield.

Colonel Charles Audley was a wonderful hero--practical nature shot through with a silken romantic streak and a clear-eyed sense of self and self-worth. I really enjoyed his relationship with his sister-in law and brother, Lord and Lady Worth, as well as his befriending of the weepy Miss Lucy.

Like Lady Worth, I ultimately warmed up to Barbara Childe, but I did find her extremely annoying for much of the book and feared Col. Audley was throwing himself and his chance for happiness away. It did strike me that Barbara was cut from the same cloth as Scarlett O'Hara and Becky Sharp--charming, selfish, not afraid of scandal, and not afraid of manipulating those weaker than themselves. In An Infamous Army, I feel that Heyer gave Scarlett and Becky the happy ending and a redeeming quality that Margaret Mitchell and William Makepeace Thackerary denied their leading ladies.

I know that I didn't absorb all that An Infamous Army has to offer, and after reading up on the Battle of Waterloo and Wellington, I plan to reread it. In the meantime, I plan to read its prequel, Regency Buck, which has been sitting on my shelf for far too long.

When I was looking for an image of the book, I found a lot I didn't like--they depict a pretty young woman, minimizing the setting, which is smack dab in the middle of an epic battle--until I found the one shown above. I do rather like the Sourcebooks cover, which is the Amazon link I provided, but that image has been over-used lately and I thought might be a bit confusing.

I did listen to it, and because of that, I found the Wikipedia entry for the novel extremely helpful, especially in the early chapters while I was trying to sort out who's who and the various relationships and alliances.

Now, all I want for Christmas is a movie version--how about a mini-series?

Isn't this engraving of the Duchess of Richmond's Ball on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo just wonderful?

Faro's Daughter

Laurel Ann’s month-long celebration of the works of Georgette Heyer at AustenProse inspired me to read another of this prolific author’s fun novels. After reading and commenting on many of the reviews, I found that Faro’s Daughter struck my fancy and I wasn’t disappointed.

I started it on Wednesday during my plane ride to NYC and finished it on the return flight to Denver last night. What a great escape from the toils of the workaday world!

I thoroughly enjoyed the premise of Faro’s Daughter—that is, the heroine, Deborah Grantham is the niece of Lady Bellingham, who runs a high-class, high-stakes gaming house in London in a benighted effort to make ends meet. Deb and her brother, Kit, are orphans, raised by their widowed aunt, and Deb is fiercely loyal to her aunt, quick-witted, good-humored and proud and respectable. Unfortunately, society is prejudiced against her and when young, impetuously romantic Adrian falls in love with her and declares his intention to marry her, his family is dead set against the match. In the wonderful world of Heyer, his family includes an uncle, Max Ravensclaw, who sets about to tear asunder Adrian and Deb, when she has no intention of marrying him at all, and a wild, madcap convoluted mess results as Deb and Max match wits, battle royal, and….you guessed it!....fall in love!

I absolutely adored Deb—funny, smarter than is good for her, heart of gold, and with the patience of a gnat. I also thought Max a charming hero—gruff, “fusty,” and honorable. I also loved that Heyer allowed him to be hoisted by his own petard—that is, instead of being the unflappable, always in control type of hero, he jumped to erroneous conclusions, was hoodwinked left and right, which made him all the more adorable.

I also enjoyed the secondary characters—Lady Bellingham was fussy and funny without intending to be—fluttering and chattering and almost drowning in the wake of Deb’s whirling dervish escapades. Their henchmen, Silas and Lucius, were also fun, off-the-wall characters, and Adrian was yet another fresh-faced, earnest, enthusiastic dandy.

Finally, I really enjoyed Heyer’s much celebrated attention to historical detail and lapped up the gaming house scenes with their dialogue about the games played and the protocol involved in the betting. Even the fact that houses such as Lady Bellingham’s existed was news to me. Here’s yet a whole new area for me to read up on!

Acid test? In the final scene where all is sorted out and the right couple shares a kiss, my heart gave its patented quiver of delight and I knew that I had a new favorite for my reread shelf.

The Reluctant Widow

Married at midnight, a widow at dawn, then heiress to a house of secrets! Condemned to a life of drudgery—until fate made her bride to a fast-dying rake!

A widow but never a wife, Elinor Rochdale became mistress of a house of secrets—partner in a dangerous conspiracy to save a family’s name.

The setting is England threatened by Napoleon. The cast of characters is richly varied—the unshakeable, autocratic Lord Carlyon, the rash young brother Nicholas and the sinister Francis Cheviot among them. Add an amazingly ingenious plot and the result is a story will enthrall Miss Heyer’s devotees and captivate a host of new readers.

I feel that the cover blurb and back cover summary on my vintage 1964 Pan Book version of The Reluctant Widow, by Georgette Heyer, does a remarkably accurate job of capturing the story and the tone of this wonderful little novel. In fact, the cover is delightfully anachronistic with an Eva Marie Saint lookalike, complete with bouffant hairdo, which makes the book even more of a treasure. I appreciate the stunningly beautiful reissues of Heyer’s novels by Sourcebooks, but my battered and earmarked copy has all the signs of an old friend and I’m loathe to part with it.

If you would like to read the rest of my review of The Reluctant Widow, you can do so at Austenprose, where it is one of today's featured reviews in Laurel Ann's month-long Heyer love fest. Don't forget to leave a comment at Austenprose to enter the contest to win a Sourcebook edition of this marvelous little novel--comments left here will only serve to make me happy!

Celebrating Georgette Heyer

Laurel Ann, mistress of AustenProse, is hosting a month long celebration of the life and works of Georgette Heyer, godmother of the Regency Romance and author of dozens of historical novels as well as detective stories and mysteries.

I signed up to review my favorite Heyer novel, The Reluctant Widow, and the review will be posted on AustenProse on August 13--Friday the 13th, that is! I am enjoying my third reading of this funny, romantic novel so much and can't wait to tell you all about it.

Make sure you stop by AustenProse regularly for book reviews, interviews with Heyer enthusiasts, guest blogs with same, and some rumored-to-be fabulous giveaways.

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at the Printed Page. This is the first time I've done this particular meme, but since I've started using PaperBackSwap I have a lot more books flowing into and out of my mailbox.

I'm looking forward to participating in and reading all the great posts that will be part of the March Classics Circuit, which features Georgette Heyer. Since I've already read the book I'll be posting on, I thought I'd acquire and read a few more so that I can get the most out of the tour.

An Infamous Army: A Novel of Wellington, Waterloo, Love and War arrived this week. I wanted to follow up my recent reread of Vanity Fair with another fictional account of Brussels on the eve of Waterloo, and this was recommended more than once including Library Journal on Amazon:

This must be the most accurately researched and detailed battle description that has ever appeared in a book of romantic fiction. The battle itself, and the weeks before and after it, forms the time line and backbone of this novel. The title refers to the Duke of Wellington's unkind nickname for the motley collection of national armies under his command in 1815 at Waterloo. Set in Brussels, as the French and Allied forces are converging, Heyer's story concerns the stormy courtship between Lady Barbara Childe and Col. Definitely a romance for the historically minded reader, there is no fluff here.

As did The Foundling. Here's what Amazon had to say about it:

One of readers', librarians' and booksellers' most frequently requested Heyers, The Foundling features Gilly, the seventh Duke of Sale.

A diffident young man of 24 years, easily pushed around by his overprotective uncle and the retinue of devoted family retainers who won't let him lift a finger for himself, the Duke sometimes wishes he could be a commoner. One day he decides to set out to discover whether he is "a man, or only a Duke."

Beginning with an incognito journey into the countryside to confront a blackmailer, he encounters a runaway school boy, a beautiful but airheaded orphan, one of literature's most appealing and well-spoken comic villains, and a series of alarming and even life threatening events from which he can extricate himself only with the help of his shy and lovely fiancé.

And Why Shoot a Butler? Again from Amazon's product description:

In an English country-house murder mystery with a twist, it's the butler who's the victim, every clue complicates the puzzle, and the bumbling police are well-meaning but completely baffled.

This gives me a good cross-section of Heyer--a historical, a Regency, and a mystery. A perfect antidote to endless winter.

Fever Pitchby Nick Hornby also arrived, and I put New York and Scenes of Clerical Life on hold so that I could dive into this memoir of one Brit's obsession with football, aka soccer.

Finally, volume two (So Lively a Chase) of Laura Hile's wonderful Elizabeth Eliot story, Mercy's Embrace, arrived from Amazon.

Dare I hope for another snow storm to keep me inside next weekend to enjoy these riches? Nay, I can read whether it's snowing or not...preferably NOT!

The Grand Sophy: Merchant of Venice meets Oliver Twist meets Gone With the Wind

I jumped on the Georgette Heyer bandwagon that is sweeping the blogosphere and read The Grand Sophy during a quickie weekend trip to Cleveland to visit the great and glorious Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

I was happily rolling along, laughing at Sophy's antics as she dealt with cousin Cecelia and her gormless poet, Augustus Fawnhope, cousin Charles and his humorless fiancée, Eugenia Wraxton, and her various other relatives, suitors, and lovers. Then, Sophy decided to help cousin Hubert and that involved a trip to Goldhangar, the moneylender. I was appalled that Heyer included such a blatantly anti-semitic character in this romp in Regencyland. Goldhangar was Fagin and Shylock and every other Jewish moneylender that has disgraced literature for centuries. I can forgive Shakespeare because there is sufficient ambiguity in his words to allow actors over the ages to portray Shylock in a completely sympathetic way without changing a word of the play. Dickens, one can argue, still lived in the dark ages but I don't like him enough to try to excuse his prejudices. Heyer,however, should've be taught better or know better, especially since The Grand Sophy was written in 1950 (aka post-WWII).

At one point, Sophy brags that her father says that she was "born without any nerves at all...and almost no sensibility." It seems to me that her creator demonstrates almost no sensitivity in her portrayal of Goldhangar. I sort of feel the way I did when I studied the Civil War after reading Gone With the Wind a bazillion times. Like Margaret Mitchell, Heyer can tell a good story, but is it an honest story? This reminds me of a conversation I had with my kids when we recently went to see a stage production of To Kill a Mockingbird - the point I was trying to make is that being fiction doesn't mean a story isn't true, and all great literature should be true.

To Kill a Mockingbird is much more true than The Grand Sophy--I don't think anyone's going to argue that point--nor is anyone going to argue whether or not The Grand Sophy is great literature. In GWTW, Mammy tells Scarlett that Rhett is no good, even though he has lots of money--"he come of good stock and he all slicked up lak a race hawse, but he a mule in hawse harness."

It seems to me that GWTW and The Grand Sophy are mighty appealing, they're all slicked up like race horses, but they're lies...just mules in horse harnesses. Lots of people are reading and enjoying Heyer these days, but the poison in a portrayal of a stock character that should have left our culture centuries ago is that it doesn't taste like the poison it is. And that's what makes it dangerous. It is poison, and we shouldn't just swallow it just because it tastes good.

Is this the only instance of Heyer being racist? I haven't read enough of her to know. Maybe I'll read a bio of her next to know whereof she comes before I read more of her novels.