Full House Challenge 2015 Wrap-Up Post

The Full House Reading Challenge, hosted over on the Book Date, gave me a bingo card of categories to complete. In 2014, I enjoyed the book bingo challenge so much I completed two Bingo Cards. This year, because I burned myself out a bit on challenges, I did complete this challenge, but I sadly have no wish to take part in a similar one again in 2016. I completed this one on the 19th of June, and here are the categories I had to fill and the books I read:

Library book

Odinsbarn – Siri Pettersen

Novella

TarnishedKnight – Bec McMaster

Author outside your own country

Visionin Silver – Anne Bishop

Won or borrowed

TheBoy in the Striped Pyjamas – John Boyne

2nd or more in a series

TheRuin of a Rogue – Miranda Neville

A top book of 2015 for you

TheMartian – Andy Weir

Setting that you now want to visit

FirstFrost – Sarah Addison Allen

Book by an author you really like

TradeMe – Courtney Milan

Book set in the Northern Hemisphere

Allfor You – Laura Florand

Been on your TBR “forever”

Populærmusikkfra Vittula – Mikael Niemi

You heard about the book online

TheRoyal We – Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

Award winning

WillGrayson, Will Grayson – John Green and David Levithan

Free choice

BigLittle Lies – Liane Moriarty

Debut novel by author

DearMr. Knightley – Katherine Reay

Published in 2014

SayYes to the Marquess – Tessa Dare

Set in the Southern Hemisphere

Rock Hard – Nalini Singh

First in a series

Shadowand Bone – Leigh Bardugo

Published 2000-2013

TheSisterhood of the Travelling Pants – Ann Brasheres

Published pre-2000

Girl,Interrupted – Susanna Kaysen

Type of book you rarely or never read

TheLife-Changing Magic of Tidying – Marie Kondo

Published in 2015

TheDarkest Part of the Forest – Holly Black

A keeper

TheHook Up – Kristen Callihan

Outstanding hero or heroine

TheWinner’s Crime – Marie Rutkoski

Author new to you

StationEleven – Emily St. John Mandel

You love the cover

Uprooted – Naomi Novik

#CBR7 Book 72: "Populærmusikk fra Vittula"(Popular Music from Vittula) by Mikael Niemi

Page count: 224 pages
Rating: 2 stars

Matti grows up in a tiny town in the remote north of Sweden in the 1960s and 70s. The chapters in this book are more like little short stories about different aspects of his childhood and adolescence, chronicled with humour and the occasional forays into strange, magical realism-inspired fantasy sequences. The inhabitants of his town and the surrounding areas seem to be either deeply puritanically religious or Communists, not caring for the trappings of religion at all. The gruff and peculiar inhabitants are set in their ways and far too prone to alcoholism.

There's the story of Matti's near-mute best friend Niila, whose father, a lapsed preacher, is so domineering and abusive that neither of the many children of the family speak much, and Niila first learns to speak in Esperanto, through lessons he overhears on the radio in Matti's house. We hear about Matti and Niila's childhood discoveries of rock music, with the hits of Elvis Presley and the Beatles making a huge impact on their lives, inspiring them to form a band. There's the friendly rivalry of adolescent boys, and the organised warfare with airguns that the teens orchestrate in the neighbourhood. There's the summer when Matti is trying to make enough money for a guitar of his own, and engages in devious and gory rat extermination to keep the cabin of a visiting German author vermin free.

Because the book is occasionally a straight-forward coming of age narrative about boys in a rural area in the 60s and 70s, but then all of a sudden veers into some dreamlike sequence where a boy gets trapped in a furnace for a winter and starts growing roots, or there is a cross-dressing witch in the woods who can exorcise ghosts, it's hard to pinpoint what the book is actually trying to be. As such, I found the book more frustrating than satisfying. The jumps in narrative, where the story will in one chapter talk about Matti's childhood, then his teens, then back again to earlier in his life, in very strange, seemingly unconnected episodes (all with the common denomination that they're set in Vittula, where he comes from) made the book confusing and while I appreciate the writer's skill, this book just didn't really work for me.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 71: "The Martian" by Andy Weir

Page count: 369 pages
Rating: 5 stars

Six days into the first manned mission on Mars, there is a huge dust storm, forcing most of the crew to evacuate, earlier than anticipated. Mark Watney, the crew's botanist and mechanical engineer is impaled on an antenna and believed to have died. He wakes up alone, stranded on Mars with no way of signalling Earth that he is still alive. The next manned mission to Mars is scheduled in four years' time, and even if he were able to send a signal to announce his miraculous survival, he doesn't have enough supplies to last him long enough for a rescue mission to reach him. Even if he could use his botany skills to grow food enough to last him, none of the equipment he has with him is designed to last for years in the unforgiving environment of the red planet. Mark Watney, one of the first men to ever walk on Mars, is very likely to be the first man ever to die there too. He's not going down without a fight, though? With his boundless optimism, his education and his creativity, he's determined to survive until the next crew of space explorers arrive, when he will hopefully be able to go home at last.

I was given this book as a Cannonball gift exchange present from the lovely Beth Ellen, but first heard about it in August last year, when my friend Erica, who usually can't stand science fiction books, read it in less than 48 hours and then rated it five stars. Since then, so many people all over the interwebs have read and reviewed it and absolutely loved it, to the point where I started getting scared of reading it at all, convinced I was going to be the first person I knew, in real life or online, who was going to think the book was just ok. So I kept putting it off, and finding excuses for why I couldn't read it yet, until the trailers for the upcoming film starring Matt Damon started being released, and I realised that unless I wanted to get spoiled, I was going to have to just read the book already.

I discovered very quickly that I wasn't going to hate the book, and as I tore through the pages (annoyed that I actually had to do work, even with the summer holidays quickly approaching), it was really obvious why so many different people in my friend sphere had rated the book so very highly. I've seen it described as Robinson Crusoe meets MacGyver several times, and as a super-brief summary, that makes a lot of sense. Mark Watney is a great protagonist. He's funny, charming, self-deprecating, resourceful and smart. He keeps his head cool in a crisis (and being stranded on Mars is a hell of one) and his education, training and background make it believable that he'd be able to actually do the things he ends up doing to survive. I will admit I skimmed quite a few of the explanations of the mechanics and physics of what he did, because science is so far from what I cared about, but it all seemed realistic.

The chapters are short, the tension is high and Mark is a character you really root for. You want him to make it, you are invested in his survival and while I assumed he was going to be ok in the end, this was not a guarantee and actually told my husband (who, is coincidentally also called Mark) off for asking me questions while I was reading the final parts of the book. I needed for it to be only me and the book. So yes, you can add me to the long list of people who loved this book and have added Mark Watney to my list of favourite fictional characters. Now I'm one of the many who hope Ridley Scott doesn't screw up the film.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 69: "Uprooted" by Naomi Novik

Page count: 448 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer! I got this as an ARC through NetGalley in return for a fair and unbiased review.The book is available now.

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.

Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its power at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman to be handed over to him every ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows - everyone knows - that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things that Agnieszka isn't, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.

But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

While this remarkable novel by Naomi Novik isn't actually a retelling of some traditional fairy tale, it feels like it should be. The book moves slowly, thoroughly establishing the sleepy little environment Agniezka and Kasia live in, with the terrors of the slowly encroaching Wood so close by. Once someone disappears in the Wood, they will hopefully stay lost. Should they return, they are like creatures possessed spreading its malevolent influence. It's because the dangers that threaten them constantly that the villagers accept having to sacrifice a young woman to the mysterious and reclusive wizard who lives in the tower nearby. He keeps them for ten years, when they return to their families briefly, apparently unharmed but inevitably changed. They never seem content to stay in their home villages, usually going to the capital, rarely to return.

The Dragon always chooses the most promising and accomplished of the women, and so everyone in the area are expecting Kasia to be the next young woman to be taken. It's a huge surprise to everyone, not least Agnieszka, when she is the one selected to go with the wizard. She barely gets time to say good bye to her loved ones before the Dragon sweeps her away. Now, terrified and confused, because while the women who return from the Dragon's service always appeared healthy and unmolested, there were always rumours. They lived alone with a man for a decade after all. The impatient and surly wizard seems completely uninterested in her physically though, and after finding a note from a previous occupant of her room, Agnieszka is relieved that she won't be molested in any way. She tries to follow the orders of her new master, but because the Dragon isn't exactly very clear in what he actually wants, it takes her quite a while to understand that he's trying to teach her magic, and his lessons are not going as expected. It's only when she finds the dusty spell book of a legendary witch that she seems to get the magic to work for her.

At first the Dragon doesn't believe that Agnieszka's brand of magic could have any effect. Only after several attempts does it become clear that his way of using magic is more intellectual and book based, while Agnieszka's is more emotional and intuition based. As the threats from the Wood become greater, it's clear that they need to find a way to work together. One terrible day, when the Dragon is called away to deal with a crisis, Agnieszka receives word that her village is being threatened as well. When she discovers that her dearest friend Kasia has been taken by the creatures of the Wood, she risks everything to rescue her. Now she needs to find a way to free her friend from the Wood's influence, even if such a task has always been believed to be impossible.

To begin with, Agnieszka seems like one of those women who only seem to exist in fiction, too clumsy for words and completely out of her element. We are told that while Kasia is all that is beautiful, talented, graceful and accomplished, Agnieszka can't go through a single day without getting her clothes torn or stained or in some way screwing things up. No one expects her to be the next woman to go with the Dragon. She is terrified and confused, unclear about her duties and feels absolutely horrible from the simple spells the Dragon makes her do. Because he's more than a century old, used to girls with more aptitude for magic (because that's what he does, he trains them in magic so they can help him keep the Wood from taking over more of the area), he's not used to having to explain his methods or motivation. He is also appalled when Agnieszka explains to him what everyone in the surrounding villages believes is his ulterior motive for selecting the girls.

Because Agnieszka has always been unfavourably compared to Kasia, and is so completely unable to grasp the tenets of the Dragon's magical spells, she, like everyone else underestimates herself greatly. It takes time for her to realise that she has value and gifts of her own and that she is has a gift for magic, just not one that has been seen in the country for a long time. She truly begins to find her strength and powers when her best friend is threatened. Doing the impossible, she rescues Kasia from the Wood and refuses to give up on her. In the process, she is also forced to examine her feelings of inadequacy and jealousy towards her dear friend, because even best friends aren't always charitable in the ways they think of one another, and there will always be times when we are jealous, insecure and petty. Moving through and past this, Kasia and Agnieszka's friendship is changed, but stronger as a result.

In the second act of the book, so to speak, Agnieszka has to leave the world she's always known, as well as the safety of the Dragon's tower and go to the capital, to deal with political intrigue, other wizards and discovers that the sinister forces that control the Wood are present even there and bent on causing destruction and havoc not only in her home country of Polnya, but also the neighbouring country. Because of Agnieszka's miraculous rescue of Kasia, the youngest prince of Polnya is determined to reclaim his mother, the missing queen, who allegedly ran away with her lover nearly twenty years ago. They both disappeared in the Wood. Is what they rescue from the forest, at terrible loss of life, truly the lost queen, or something much more sinister?

The last third of the book got a bit wearying, with what felt to me to be unnecessary and repetitive violence and finally a rather puzzling explanation of what the motivation behind the terrifying force of the Wood actually was. I can't stress enough how creepy and sinister I felt the Wood and its many "minions" was. It's such a great villain, for all that it's not one thing, but this seemingly unstoppable and relentless force, with feral wolves, giant preying mantises, evil trees and other monsters at its disposal. Still, I got a bit tired and confused towards the end, just wanting things to wrap up.

Overall, this is such a great read, with Agnieszka as a wonderful heroine at its centre. Her friendship with Kasia is heartwarming and her slowly developing powers and confidence feels empowering in all the right ways. The medieval style kingdoms felt extremely real and the whole story feels as if Naomi Novik found some treasure trove of old Eastern European fairy tales and just reinterpreted them. There is a romantic subplot in the book as well, and one of my other complaints, along with the dragging last third of the book, is that the romance isn't more fully developed. It has so much promise, damn it, and I felt cheated that there wasn't more of it. The only thing I'd read by Novik before this, was Temeraire (or His Majesty's Dragon, as it's also known). While that didn't appeal to me that much(even with dragons, there was too much military history, not my thing), this was great. For anyone with an interest in fairy tale narratives with strong, female friendship at its core and some real horrors to be overcome before there is a chance at a HEA, this is a book for you.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 64: "Big Little Lies" by Liane Moriarty

Page count: 462 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

I can't believe it's been nearly a month since I read this book. Because of my massive backlog, I'm going to resort to my favourite short-cut, stealing the blurb from Goodreads:

A murder...a tragic accident...or just parents behaving badly? What's indisputable is that someone is dead. But who did what?

Big Little Lies follows three women, each at a crossroads: 

Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She's funny and biting, passionate, she remembers everything and forgives no one. Her ex-husband and his new yogi wife have moved into her beloved beachside community, and their daughter is in the same kindergarden class as Madeline's youngest (how is this possible?). And to top it all off, Madeline's teenage daughter seems to be choosing Madeline's ex-husband over her. (How. Is. This. Possible?).

Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare. While she may seem a bit flustered at times, who wouldn't be, with those rambunctious twin boys? Now that the boys are starting school, Celeste and her husband look set to become the king and queen of the school parent body. But royalty often comes at a price, and Celeste is grappling with how much more she is willing to pay.

New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for the nanny. Jane is sad beyond her years and harbors secret doubts about her son. But why? While Madeline and Celeste soon take Jane under their wing, none of them realizes how the arrival of Jane and her inscrutable little boy will affect them all. 

Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the dangerous little lies we tell ourselves just to survive.

This is yet another book that it feels like I read after everyone and their mothers had discovered, read and raved about it, while I foolishly believed it was not for me. It's happened many times before, most notable with Jenny Lawson's amazing biography, the very funny Where'd You Go, Bernadette?, earlier this year with the lovely Station Eleven and now again with this. I had convinced me that this was just some sort of mommy version of Mean Girls with PTA moms gossipping and figuratively stabbing each other in the back. I was so very wrong, and I should have listened to all the eloquent and well-written reviews of my fellow Cannonballers. Sorry guys. It was only when my kindred spirit and book twin on the internet, Narfna, posted this review that I finally decided that OK, let's see what all the fuss is about.

I was hooked before I'd even finished the first chapter, where it's made clear that something very bad has happened at the trivia night of Pirriwee Public School. Of course, with chapter two, the action jumps six months back in time, introducing the reader to the three protagonists, three wonderful, interesting, but also vulnerable and flawed women who feel beautifully realistic and who at least I grew to love very quickly, for all that I understood that like my own friends, they would occasionally exasperate and annoy me, all the while they were there for me and had my back. You know from the very first chapter that someone is going to die at the trivia night, but Moriarty keeps you on tenterhooks as to who said individual is going to be.

This book is so many things. Contemporary drama and mystery, it's very funny at times and heart-breakingly touching (at least to me) at others. It explores both the complicated friendships and rivalries between women, motherhood and the insecurities of getting older. The relationships between husbands and wives, both current and divorced, mothers and their children, teachers and parents. Sure, there are petty school intrigues and women gossipping about each other, but that's such a tiny part as to seem almost insignificant. There are a number of other issues explored in the book as well, that I don't want to reveal, because this book really is best read when you go into it more or less ignorant, able to face the surprises and plot twists as they are sprung on you. Suffice to say, it's about the importance of friendships, of not being too prejudiced and judging before you have the whole picture - and about the many secrets that we keep from our friends and loved ones because we fear to seem weak or less in control.

I wanted Madeline, Celeste and Jane to be my friends. I don't think there was a single chapter when I wasn't at least a little entertained. Every time I thought I knew where the story was going, there would be something new revealed that I hadn't counted on. There were absolutely some bits that didn't work as well for me, mainly Madeline's jealousy of Bonnie, her ex-husband's new wife and the rather wearying lengths her teenage daughter went to get attention, but those were such small things and this book made me laugh and cry, bite my nails and most importantly, turn the pages with bated breath with each chapter bringing me closer to the fateful trivia night and its aftermath. I cursed the work load that made it impossible for me to just devour the book. So, if you, like me, might think from the book description that this book isn't for you - give it a chance - it's such a good read.

I will absolutely be reading more Liane Moriarty. In the acknowledgements, I discovered that she's the sister of another Australian writer whose books I love, the YA author, Jaclyn Moriarty. It just seems unfair to me that two such talented writers are related, but perhaps great writing skill is genetic.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read, where you can also find MANY more reviews of this book.

#CBR7 Book 61: "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" by John Boyne

Page count: 218 pages
Rating: 2 stars

Nine-year-old Bruno lives in a big house in Berlin and is not at all happy when the household is packed up and he, his mother, his older sister and the servants are forced to travel by train to a new house, far away in the desolate countryside. He misses the bustling city, the house with such a great banister for sliding down, his grandparents, his friends, even his school. At the new house, there is no one to play with, just a small garden and a tall fence in the distance, reaching as far as the eye can see. He tries to convince his parents that they need to move back, but is hopeful that his new exile will only last for maybe a month.

Of course, Bruno is wrong, and he is forced to settle into his new home. His busy father has uniformed soldiers coming in and out of his office all the time, and doesn't really have time for his wife or children any more. Going off on his own to explore the countryside, Bruno walks along the tall barbed wire fence and one day meets a skinny boy, dressed in what appears to be striped pyjamas. The boy's name is Shmuel and Bruno discovers that he too is nine years old. Not only that, they share the same birthday. Bruno doesn't tell his family about his new friend and keeps sneaking back to the fence to talk to his new friend, who seems strangely reluctant to tell Bruno too much of the details of his life. As the boys' friendship develops, Bruno becomes more and more curious about Shmuel's life behind the fence. When he decides to crawl under a loose section of the fence, it has unexpected consequences.

I'm unsure of who the intended target audience for the book is. Because it's written from the POV of a naive and sheltered child, it may seem like a children's book. But because of the subtle ways in which the story is told, you need knowledge of World War II and the Holocaust to really understand what is going on. A child wouldn't understand that "The Fury" is Hitler and "Out With is in fact, Auschwitz-Birkenau, probably the most infamous and well-known of all of the Nazi's death camps. Apparently, the author wrote the first draft of the book in about two and a half days, and intends it as a "fable" about the war. Which may describe why the story seems a bit too simplistic.

I was also expecting that a book at least tangentially about the Holocaust would affect me more emotionally, but this book really didn't make me feel much of anything, except perhaps bafflement that at nine, Bruno can be so sheltered and naive, and unwilling to question his surroundings. In one review I saw of the book, the reviewer suggested that a lot of Bruno's character traits would be more believable in a younger boy, perhaps around 6. That a nine-year-old whose father is a Commandant in the Nazi army is unable to pronounce "Der Führer" correctly, seems unlikely. Since the family aren't moved to Poland until 1943, I find it very doubtful that Bruno, in his school in Berlin, hasn't been taught about the superiority of the Aryan race and the inferiority of the Jewish race. That he doesn't know about death camps is fair, but I find it hard to believe that he wouldn't know anything about the Jews as a people and a deeply hated race.

It's not a very long book, but neither Bruno (despite the fact that we see the story through his eyes) nor any of the other characters are particularly well defined. Bruno seems rather spoiled and very oblivious. His sister is only 12, but spends much of her time attempting to flirt with some of the officers working for her father. This made me deeply uncomfortable. Bruno's parents are pretty much non-entities, although it's suggested that Bruno's mother has a drinking problem and possibly has an affair with one of the same young officers that her pre-teen daughter is trying to flirt with. Shmuel is the person who interacts the most with Bruno, but he doesn't make much of an impression either. I also question how he's able to sneak away from his work duties all the time to sit by a fence (which should surely be much more heavily guarded than it is in this book) to chat with Bruno.

The ending seems inevitable from fairly early on, and was probably supposed to affect me. I would feel like a bad person for not being moved, but the characters were too simply drawn and the whole scenario just seemed implausible to me. I know the book was made into a film in 2008, and from the plot summary, it seems that the plot has possibly been made more complex and plausible - Bruno certainly doesn't seem completely unaware of what a Jew is. Based on the book, I doubt I'd be all that interested in seeing the film either, though.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 54: "The Royal We" by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

Page count: 464 pages
Rating: 4 stars

It seems very appropriate to post my review of the Fug Girls' most recent book (their baby, so to speak) on the same day that the Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to her second baby.

This book starts the night before American Rebecca Porter is about to marry the heir to the British throne, as she's trying not to freak out about the fact that she's being blackmailed and her twin sister isn't speaking to her at all.

Cut to many years previous, when she arrives in Oxford in the rain, and the handsome young man who opens the door for her and helps her with the luggage turns out to be none other than Prince Nicholas, eldest grandson to Queen Eleanor and heir to the throne of Great Britain. Unlike her twin sister, Lacey, who used to dress up as a Disney princess and who obsessively reads gossip magazines for royal gossip, Bex (oh dear Lord how I hate that nickname) was never all that concerned, and despite sharing a corridor with Nick (or Steve as he is called when supposed to be incognito) doesn't impact her life overmuch in the beginning. She does realise that with the exception of his loyal inner circle of friends, most people are trying to gain something from their association wit the prince and his loyal friends frequently plant fake stories with different people just to see who can't be trusted not to blab to the press.

When Night Nick (the prince has insomnia) and Rebecca (I REFUSE to call her Bex) start bonding over the supernatural soap opera Devour (which I need to become a real thing in the worst way. My life is empty and meaningless without it), they gradually grow closer, until the weekend when Rebecca visits Windsor Castle where Nick has recreated her mother's Thanksgiving dinner exactly, so she won't feel so homesick, and they fall into each other's arms. Of course being the girlfriend to the heir to the throne, especially when you're an American to boot, isn't easy, and for years there is a lot of sneaking around in secret, until they are caught on camera by a paparazzi. Then things get even more difficult.

Since the book starts with Rebecca about to marry Nick, it's really not a surprise to the reader that although their romance is far from easy, and they even spend quite some time broken up, they are eventually going to get back together, and Rebecca will clearly be accepted by the Royal family - or there would be no wedding. I'm not sure if the authors intended the identity of the blackmailer to be a surprise, it seemed pretty obvious to me from fairly early on who it was going to be.

I read this book during the Spring Read-a-thon, and I suspect reading it over so many hours made me more a bit more frustrated with some sections of the book than if I'd read it over a few days. The extended section where Rebecca and Nick are broken up, and Rebecca goes on an extended bender got boring pretty fast and the complications that lead to Rebecca being blackmailed in the latter half of the book felt very forced to me. I'm not sure if that subplot was entirely necessary and it weakened the ending of the book for me.

Mostly, this was a highly entertaining romp, even more fun than the Fug Girls' YA books Spoiled and Messy. I must admit that their Royalty coverage is among the posts I skip during my weekly visits to the Go Fug Yourself website, because the older I get, the more convinced I am that monarchy should be abolished and that the royals are useless parasites draining an obscene amount of taxpayer money in the countries that they represent (including my own home country and that of my birth). I also had the dubious pleasure of going to St. Andrews university when Prince William enrolled there in my fourth year, so housing prices in town rose virtually overnight, due to the huge influx of rich Americans and Europeans enrolling at the Uni to get a glimpse of his highness. Now, a decade later, there are little signs up all over the place purporting to be coffee shops or pubs where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge spent time.

While I think the monarchy is an outdated idea, it doesn't mean that I can't enjoy this book which is pretty much Will and Kate fan fiction. Playboy prince Freddie and the more and more preposterous names of his many girlfriends - a true delight, as are most of the supporting characters in Rebecca and Nick's circle of friends (my favourite may have ended up being Bea, Lady Bollocks herself). I suspect Rebecca is a more down to earth and grounded person than the woman she's modelled on (because while she may be a commoner, her father was one of the richest men in England even before his daughter married a prince) and from some of the stories I heard from friends and acquaintances, Nick in his student days kept a MUCH lower profile than William did. If you like celebrity gossip, pretty clothes, soapy intrigue, a modern fairy tale romance between a girl from Iowa and the heir to the British throne might be just what the doctor ordered. Personally, I'm going to try to figure out how to convince Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan to pitch Devour to the CW so it can become a real thing. Vampires, witches, minotaurs, werewolves, shapeshifters, a private investigator who can smell the future, and panthers who seem like they know to much - how is this not on my TV already?

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 36: "Tarnished Knight" by Bec McMaster

Page count: 162 pages
Rating: 3 stars

This novella is part of Bec McMaster's London Steampunk series. Some of the back story and world building for the story can be found in my review for Kiss of Steel, the first book in the series.

When former factory worker turned East End enforcer John "Rip" Doolan was nearly killed by a vampire attack, the only way to save his life was for his employer Blade to infect him with the craving virus (a sort of vampire light option). After six months, he is still struggling to control his blood lust. The last thing he wants to do is endanger his Esme, Blade's housekeeper, who previous to the vicious attack was his dearest friend.

Esme's heart nearly broke when John was almost killed, and she'd love for nothing more than to be his thrall, i.e his real live blood donor. While those infected with the craving virus can drink bottled blood or chilled blood from storage, they obviously prefer it straight from the vein, and the thralls get a near sexual thrill from the exchange. Esme, a widow who had become very close to John (she's the only person not to call him Rip) before his near-fatal attack, was hoping for a future with him and doesn't see why him suddenly having the craving virus should stop that.

John, of course, is pigheadedly protective and determined to keep his distance and the two keep having tense and unproductive encounters in between mostly avoiding one another until their employer, Blade, steps in and provides some Yuletide manipulation for the good of all.

There is also an action subplot involving a criminal gang called the Slashers, who kidnap women and children and drain them of blood, selling it to the Echelon, the vampiric nobility. As one of Blade's chief lieutenants, John is trying to track the Slashers down and Esme, of course, gets kidnapped as retaliation. Can John save his beloved before it's too late?

Reading this novella reminded me just how much fun the world Bec McMaster has created is. Both Esme and John were supporting characters in Kiss of Steel. You don't need to have read the first book in the series to understand the plot, but you'll have a greater understanding of the intricate world-building. It's a nice little romance, where the annoying misunderstandings of John avoiding Esme to protect her and both of them constantly saying the wrong thing or misinterpreting the words of the other may go on for a bit longer than I would have liked (I tend to find any romance where the problems could be solved just by the characters daring to speak honestly to each other), it's not a big flaw. Having now revisited McMaster's alternative Steampunk London, I will most assuredly return there later this reading year.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 34: "Dear Mr. Knightley" by Katherine Reay

Page count: 336 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer! I got this from NetGalley in return for a fair and honest review. 

Samantha Moore has spent most of her life in foster care. Having tried to hold down a job on her own, she reluctantly accepts a scholarship offered by an anonymous benefactor, to Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. The scholarship will only be available as long as she completes her degree, and writes about her progress to the foundation, care of the CEO, who hides behind the name Mr. Knightley. Samantha has always had trouble relating to people in the real world, hiding away in classical literature, where she finds solace. She has trouble making connections with others, since she speaks more in literary quotations than actual words, afraid to really be herself or let anyone close to the real her.

Because George Knightley is such an admired hero of Sam's, she accepts the stipulation, and begins to write regularly. Mr. Knightley never responds, but Sam knows her missives are beign read, as very occasionally, she receives a note from the CEO's assistant, responding if it is required. To begin with, Sam finds journalism extremely difficult, wanting instead to focus on a career in creative writing. Because of her difficulties in opening up and properly communicating with other people, her journalistic work is stilted and impersonal. As well as in her many books, Sam finds escape through running. On the running track, she slowly starts bonding with Kyle, one of the other foster kids, but as they are both wounded and slow to trust others, their friendship is difficult to really build.

As she struggles to discover who she really is and overcome her academic challenges, Sam gradually manages to emerge from behind her affected literary personas and make genuine connections. She makes a couple of female friends at college and through a series of coincidences befriends her favourite author, the crime writer Alex Powell. She gets a boyfriend for the first time, and her letters to Mr. Knightley become more like a personal journal than reports on her academic progress. Will she ever find out the real identity of her mysterious benefactor, and how will she react when she does?

I get a fair amount of books through NetGalley, mainly because I can't stop myself from requesting everything that looks even vaguely interesting to me. Sadly, I am really not as good about reviewing the books I am granted ARCs or review copies of, frequently forgetting about them unless they're by an author I especially love (and even then there are so many other shiny books out there to distract me). This is one of those books I forgot about completely and only remembered again when I was looking for epistolary novels for my Eclectic Reader challenge. The fact that it also fit into my key word challenge for March was just a bonus.

While I can see on Goodreads that quite a lot of people (at least of the reviews I browsed) found this book disappointing, and a pale copy of the children's book that it's inspired by, Daddy Long-Legs, I found it very sweet and it reminded me a lot of another book I really like, The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. It also features a heroine with a long history in the foster care system, who is wounded and needs to learn to find her place in the world. I can absolutely understand why readers may find Sam annoying. I'm fairly sure she's supposed to be. The entire premise of this book is that she is so guarded and distrustful that she's unable to make any real connections, seeking refuge in books and hiding all her true feelings and ineptly channelling fictional characters when forced to talk to others. She's a complete train wreck, but there are good reasons for that. While the book starts when she is 23, this book is clearly a coming of age narrative, and Sam needs to grow up and learn to face reality, both the painful and the joyful parts.

As far as I can tell, the epistolary aspect of the book, where she has to write letters to the mysterious Mr. Knightley is to make it as close to the premise of Daddy Long-Legs as possible. I'm sure I'm not the only reader of the book who started suspecting the true identity of her benefactor fairly early on, because really, I'm not even sure if it's supposed to come as a surprise to anyone who's read more than a couple of books in their life. There are only so many people it could be. It didn't take away from my enjoyment of the book, although I think said person could have come clean sooner instead of continuing to deceive Sam. It still didn't ruin my suspension of disbelief.

Reading and enjoying this book has also made me decide to check out the book that it's based on, and that so many Goodreaders are enthusing about. I'm very glad I re-discovered this book in my NetGalley pile, and will happily seek out other books by this author in future.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.