#CBR10 Book 45: "Hamilton: The Revolution" by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter

Page count: 285 pages
Rating: 5 stars

A quick search suggests that this book has been reviewed for Cannonball at least eight times already, so it's not like anything I say about the book is likely to be new or revolutionary (see what I did there). I don't think there was ever any doubt that I was going to love this book, considering just how much I love the musical.

I don't remember exactly when I first heard about Hamilton, but it's likely to be early in 2016 (I got this as a birthday gift that year from my best friend, and then postponed reading it until spring this year, in preparation for seeing the musical live in London). Enough people I know on the internets (it's where almost all my friends "live" now) were talking about it in such enthusiastic tones that I was curious. I discovered that the music was available on Spotify, and don't think I've been so immediately taken with a musical since I first heard Les Miserables (another musical where I'd listened to the music countless times before I actually got to see it on stage. The first time I heard it, it was the Norwegian translation - not as good as the English, but still great). I had shivers down my spine, I cried buckets, especially during the second act. I'd listened to it more times than I could count by the time the husband and I visited New York in the summer of 2016, so when I saw this book in a bookstore, there was no question it was going to go on my birthday wish list.

Yet when I finally had the beautiful hardcover, I didn't feel like starting it right away. Other things kept getting in the way, and once I secured tickets to the show in London, I made the conscious decision to wait to read it until our trip was getting closer, so the reading experience would be fresh in my mind. Of course, this spring, there's a little someone who takes up most of my time and also tends to wreck my concentration. I can get a fair bit of reading done, by either listening to audio books or holding my Kindle in one hand while nursing, but juggling a big hardback book and turning pages while also half-wrestling a rapidly growing infant (he's getting squirmier by the day) on my lap isn't the easiest. So I would usually get a few chapters read at a time while he was sleeping or being entertained by his father. I also listened to the cast recording on Spotify several times while reading the book, following along with the annotated lyrics for the songs included at the end of each chapter. In the end, I read the last two chapters the evening before we flew to London, once we were done packing, because the wee one was refusing to go to sleep. While reading a big hardback while nursing isn't ideal, it can be done and I was determined to get the book finished before we left.

Hamilton: An American Musical is a wonderful musical. It's a great show and seeing it on stage in London was a dream come true. While I pretty had all the lyrics memorised, seeing the actual staging and character interactions just blew me away. I was crying on and off throughout the entire show, much more so than when I just listen to it (and It's Quiet Uptown and Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story never fails to have me in tears). Having the back story of how the show came to be, with all the work and loving labour that went into it probably made it an even better experience.

It's a beautiful book, with so many behind the scenes pictures and I can't imagine any fan of the show wouldn't get a lot out of reading this book.

Judging a book by its cover: The cover of my hardback is very simple, with the now pretty iconic image promoting the musical at the centre. The background colour is chosen to bring to mind old paper or parchment, I suspect (the pages of the hardback are the same, it's lovely). Simple, yet elegant. I don't think they needed a flashy cover design for this book to sell.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 61: "The Girl with the Make-Believe Husband" by Julia Quinn

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 3 stars

Shortly after the death of her father, Miss Cecilia Harcourt gets a letter informing her that her brother, Thomas Harcourt has been injured during battle i the American colonies. Her odious cousin keeps coming around hinting strongly at how beneficial it would be for Cecilia to marry him, so instead she buries the family silver in the garden and sets off over the Atlantic to find her brother and nurse him back to health. Unfortunately, no one seems to be willing to speak to her and her brother appears to be missing. Instead she finds his best friend, Captain Edward Rokesby, who's unconscious in the hospital and clearly also needs her aid. In order to be allowed to tend to him, Cecilia lies and claims to be his wife. She knows the charade will be up as soon as Rokesby wakes up, but at least she can give him the tenderest of care until then.

When Edward wakes up, he's surprised to find the woman he identifies as his best friend Thomas' sister Cecilia by his bedside. He's even more confused when she appears to be his wife, but the doctors confirm that the blow he took to the head when out on some very secretive mission appears to have caused him to forget the last six months of his memory. As Edward had frequently sent messages to Cecilia in Thomas' letters to her, and she had started sending little greetings for him, he's not entirely surprised that he's married to her, having already half fallen in love with her through he correspondence, he just can't remember when or how the marriage took place.

Cecilia feels dreadful about her lies, but discovers that the army officials are much more likely to assist her in her search for her brother if she is Captain Rokesby's wife, not just Miss Harcourt, sister of a missing officer. So even though it pains her to deceive a clearly very honest and upstanding gentleman, she keeps up the lie that she married Edward and promises herself that as soon as they locate Thomas, she will tell him the truth and set him free, even if he's unlikely to ever want to see her again afterwards.

This is the second "hero with amnesia" romance I've read in the last few months. I thought Meredith Duran's A Lady's Code of Misconduct worked a lot better, and both the protagonists of that book were more morally complex and interesting. Julia Quinn doesn't really write about bad people. All of her characters tend to be upstanding and thoroughly decent, and apart from the lie at the centre of their relationship, there really is NO conflict between Cecilia and Edward. They're pretty much already madly in love with each other from the letters they've been exchanging and while Cecilia keeps being terribly upset about her lies, and her belief that Edward is really in love with Billie Bridgerton, his neighbour back home (who married his brother in the previous book in the series), so she's stolen him from some other woman, it's quite clear from all of Edward's thoughts that whether he remembers marrying her or not, he's absolutely crazy about Cecilia.

As well as the relationship built on a lie plot, there is Cecilia's missing brother to locate, and Edward trying to remember exactly what happened in the six months he's now forgotten. None of this was terribly interesting to me. While the setting, of Revolutionary War America is more unusual in a historical romance, I didn't really feel as if Quinn really utilised it as much as she could have. It was nevertheless a nice change from the English countryside or London drawing rooms that most of these books are set in.

It's been a long time since Quinn really knocked my socks off with one of her romances. This is perfectly pleasant, but all in all, rather forgettable. I'll still keep getting her books on sale, but she's completely off my auto-buy list for the time being.

Judging a book by its cover: I'm really not an expert on late 18th Century women's fashion, but I'm pretty sure that this is not a period appropriate dress for the American War of Independence/Revolutionary War period. It looks more like a generic "historical" dress, with no clear time period in mind. Why there's an ocean and rolling cliffs in the background is also puzzling to me, as the whole book takes place in a British-occupied New York, there's no picturesque countryside in the book at all. They have at least found a cover model who's blond, like the heroine, and her putting her finger to her lips, indicating a secret is really rather cute.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 16: "Written in My Own Heart's Blood" by Diana Gabaldon

Page count: 1008 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Hey everyone, guess who finally got caught up with this series? My epic re-read is done and I can now join the ever-increasing (I'm just taking for granted that more people will be reading the books as the TV show makes them curious and/or desperate for more Jamie and Claire) ranks of people languishing in wait for the next book.

WARNING! SPOILERS FOR EARLIER BOOKS IN THE SERIES WILL FOLLOW, SO AVOID THIS PART IF YOU AREN'T CAUGHT UP. 

While this is the shortest book Gabaldon has written in about two decades, there is still a LOT of story here. As always, the book is split into multiple sections. In some, we follow Jamie and Claire and all their family members, friends, acquaintances and antagonists in the late 18th Century, where the American War of Independence is in full swing. Other parts focus on Jamie and Claire's daughter Brianna, who has more than enough to deal with in terms of her own challenges in the late 20th Century. Such as the fact that her husband, Roger MacKenzie Wakefield and one of his ancestors is off in the middle of the 18th Century, looking for Jem, their son, who they believed an unscrupulous neighbour kidnapped and took through the standing stones in search of the gold treasure Jamie Fraser hid in a previous book. Except Brianna fairly quickly locates the boy, but has to worry about the crazy dude and his accomplices who will stop at nothing to find the gold, and the certainty that Roger will not return from the past until he's found his son, a task that will prove utterly impossible.

Claire's joy that Jamie isn't dead after all is quickly turned to worry when Jamie promptly abducts her current husband, Lord John Grey, to use as a hostage to avoid being captured by the British troops in Philadelphia. After Lord John foolishly, but oh so honourably, confesses to having had carnal knowledge of Claire when they were both drunk and grief-stricken, Jamie proceeds to beat the snot out of his former best friend, then leaves him to fend for himself against a bunch of rebel soldiers. Badly done, Jamie! I was not best pleased at this. While worrying about both her husbands, and her step-son, Lord William Ellesmere, who just discovered his true parentage when coming face to face with Jamie Fraser, in the process of abducting William's adopted father, Claire also makes the acquaintance of Lord John's older brother, the Duke of Pardloe, newly arrived in the Colonies and looking for the various members his family (his son is recovering from surgery and his daughter wants to marry a Quaker). Trying to keep him distracted from looking for his brother or nephew proves easier than expected once he is incapacitated by a powerful asthma attack, which Claire, aided by Jamie's sister Jenny, helps him recover from. Much of the first half of the book is taken up with the Frasers and the Greys and their extended families being separated, and reuniting in various fashions while fighting in the Revolutionary war. I am amazed at the many near-death encounters the various members of the Fraser clan can survive.

END SPOILERS

When it's been a while since I've read one of her books, I keep forgetting how very funny Gabaldon can be. I frequently laugh out loud when reading the books, as well as occasionally curse the characters for their poor decisions or roll my eyes at the preposterous situations they find themselves in. Unlike in several of the previous books, I didn't think there were huge sections where nothing much at all happened, most of the plot strands felt purposeful and drove the story and the characterisation onward. The exception to this, to a certain extent, was Roger's jump back to the past. While I understand why Gabaldon probably found them fun to write, these chapters with all the mention of time travel back and forth and all over the place, all got a bit too wibbily wobbly timey wimey for my tastes. While it gave the readers a chance to see certain familiar characters from earlier in the series again and in a slightly new light, I was mainly just bored and wanting to get back to other characters in other times when reading these bits.

If you've made it through the previous seven books in the series, I don't entirely see why you wouldn't read this as well. I agree with most of the other reviews I've read of this book that it's probably the best since Voyager. It's got its fair share of historical cameos (George Washington. Benedict Arnold. Benjamin Franklin, you get the gist). There are weddings, funerals, babies being born, people dying, people being taken prisoner, people escaping, Claire performing some truly grisly medical procedures, time travel, battles and wonderful quiet family moments. We reconnect with the characters we already know and get to know several new ones. Whatever you do, do not choose this as their first Gabaldon book. If you want to experience these massive books and get to know its huge cast of fasciating characters, start at the beginning with Outlander.

With this book, I also complete my first reading challenge of the year - complete at least four different series, in the Finish the Series Reading Challenge. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 95: "A Breath of Snow and Ashes" by Diana Gabaldon

Page count: 1410 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

This is the sixth book in the Outlander series, and really not the place to start reading. You will have missed out on literally thousands of pages of plot developments, intrigue and characterisation. If you are interested in checking out the series (which thanks to the current TV show, I suspect more and more might be), start at the beginning with Outlander. 

Ok, where do I even begin to summarise the plot here. The mass market paperback is over 1400 pages long and the action spans at least three years of story. The book starts in 1772, with the beginning of the American Revolution right around the corner, and as such, there is rebellion afoot. Jamie Fraser knows what is coming thanks to his wife, daughter and son-in-law, all time travellers from the mid-20th Century. He needs to make sure he doesn't get arrested for treason against the British Crown (again), but doesn't exactly want to declare for King George either. At one point, Claire is kidnapped by bandits who want the location of the Fraser's still. That section, and the following rescue (I'm NOT going to spoiler tag a book that came out in 2006 - also, Claire is the protagonist of the whole series, big surprise she doesn't get killed by her abductors), makes for uncomfortable reading. Stephen Bonnet still pops up every so often like a malevolent mushroom to make life difficult for the assorted Frasers. Fergus and Marsali and their ever-increasing brood of children move away from Fraser's Ridge after it becomes obvious that Fergus really isn't cut out to be a farmer and needs a change in careers. Brianna and Roger work on having another child and Roger trains to become a minister. Towards the latter half of the book, there is a terrible betrayal of trust, when Jamie is suddenly accused of fathering a young woman's child. Shortly after, the pregnant woman winds up murdered in Claire's garden. Will Jamie and Claire be able to prove their innocence?

I read this book when it first came out, and it turns out, I barely remembered a single detail of plot, with the exception of Claire's abduction (although even that wasn't exactly clear in my mind) and the murder in the latter half of the book. Apart from that, I may as well have been reading the book for the first time. So much of the story came as a complete surprise to me, to the point where I was wondering if I'd made up the hazy details I could recall until I got to the relevant parts of the story. Parts of the book are extremely entertaining and well plotted, and I would rate them 4 stars or higher. But just as with The Fiery Cross, this book is just so big, and there is so MUCH happening and quite a lot of it is just not all that interesting and drags the rest of the reading experience down. I have yet to read the next two books in the Outlander series, specifically because when I last read this book, I was so bored by the end that I just couldn't bear the thought of reading any more Gabaldon. Luckily, I liked it a lot more re-reading and am now quite excited to catch up with books 7 and 8 in the coming months.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR3 Book 99: "The Windflower" by Sharon and Tom Curtis

Publisher: Fanfare
Page count: 502 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Date begun: November 25th, 2011
Date finished: November 29th, 2011

The Windflower keeps appearing on All About Romance's Top 100 Romances, and is raved about on so many different romance review sites on the internet that I decided enough was enough, and went on Amazon Marketplace to track down a copy (the book was published in 1984, the book I have is from 1994, and the book's been out of print for ages).

I now see why it's so popular. This book has pretty much everything you'd want from an old fashioned romance novel - the heroine grew up with a spinster aunt, lived a terribly sheltered life style, and has barely looked at a man before she's suddenly snogged by a dashing pirate when helping her brother try to identify British spies in some little shack not far from where she grew up.  Some months later, when her English spinster aunt is taking her back to England (although the heroine is American, and terribly patriotic at that), she is abducted by ruffians and ends up on the pirate ship belonging to the half-brother of said dashing pirate who snogged her all those months ago. He thinks she's the mistress of his worst enemy, she thinks he wants to hurt her brother, who is working for the American revolutionaries.

As well as forced abductions, there are surly teenage pirates who turn out to have hearts of gold, an extremely manipulative pirate captain who knows more than anyone else, and clearly uses his pirate ship as some sort of unorthodox finishing school for the odd nobleman's son here and there, a varied band of pirates who while totally apparentl ruthless, within about a week are all willing to die for the heroine's sake.

 Merry, the heroine, veers between being very believably freaked out with the whole kidnapped by pirates thing, especially since her inexperienced little self barely knows how to react to the seductive tendencies of Devin, the pirate captain's mysterious brother, and being borderline TSTL, especially in her attempts to escape. So much badness happening to one young chit, you'd think she'd learn after the second escape attempt, when she's nearly killed from malaria!

In a romance novel written today, the hero would be a lot less douchy to the heroine. He really is very mean to her for most of the book, and keeps threatening to do horrible things to Merry, and seems vaguely puzzled when she's then terrified of him and actually believes he'll carry out his threats. Of course, the main couple would also have been having sex all over the place, while here Devin just tries to unsuccessfully seduce a woman he's pretty sure is an experienced strumpet, yet he can't bring himself to rape her, and Merry really has WAY more will power and resistance than any modern heroine - they always seem to waver a suitable amount of time before being overwhelmed by their desires and falling into bed with the hero. Merry holds out until she's married, even though Devin's proposal rivals that of Mr Darcy (the first one, NOT the second one, which is lovely) and Mr Rochester for total sucky unromanticness (it's a word - I'm an English teacher, I've decided).

A bit slow to start, the book is incredibly entertaining, and worth reading not even mainly for the main couple, who as mentioned before are a sheltered virgin and an imperious douche, but for the supporting characters, who are complex and conflicted and oh so dashing. It doesn't seem as if Tom and Sharon Curtis have written any romances about Devin's pirate captain half brother, Rand Morgan, or about Cat or Raven, two of the angsty, yet amusing teenagers aboard the ship. I'd read those books in a heartbeat.
This is a great book, well worth tracking down, even though it's out of print.