Healer of Carthage: A Novel by Lynne Gentry

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Obtained from: Netgalley

Read: September 17, 2013

A modern-day doctor gets trapped in third-century Carthage, Rome, where she uncovers buried secrets, confronts Christian persecution, and battles a deadly epidemic to save the man she loves. Dr. Lisbeth Hastings, a first-year resident, is summoned by her eccentric father to join him at his archaeological dig. She is hesitant to accept his invitation, but when a tragic mistake ends her medical career, Lisbeth decides the only way to redeem her failure is to care for her confused father. While exploring the haunting cave at her father’s dig, Lisbeth falls through a hidden hole and awakens to find herself the object of a slave bidding war! She tries to escape her captor, a wealthy Roman lawyer named Cyprian Thascius, and discovers that the city she remembers as ruins has somehow become brand-new. Who restored Carthage to a thriving metropolis? And if she is in the third century, how did this happen? Cyprian believes God called him to rescue the beautiful and strange woman being auctioned off as a slave. He doesn’t understand why saving the church of his newfound faith requires him to love a mysterious woman who seems determined to get him killed by her stubbornness. But who is he to question God? Their colliding worlds spark an intense attraction as Lisbeth and Cyprian soon find themselves united in a battle against a deadly epidemic. Together they confront Christian persecution, uncover buried secrets, and witness the beginnings of a medical revolution, but they fear Roman wrath will separate them forever. Will Lisbeth save the man she loves and the family she longs for—or will their separate worlds pull them apart forever?

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Have I mentioned I have a thing for pretty cover art? I'm pretty sure I have, but in case you've somehow missed this rather shallow aspect of my selection process, I am a self-proclaimed cover slut. For the record I'm well aware that you can't judge a book by its cover, but on the same note, my weakness has led me to sample several wonderful titles I might not have thought twice about otherwise. Case and point, Lynne Gentry's debut novel, Healer of Carthage.

My biggest concern going into this book related to the emphasis the description placed on Christianity. Religious fiction is well and good, I read and in fact enjoy a lot of it, but I can't deny experience has made me a little wary of the genre. I'm going to be criticized for saying this, I know because people just love to pass judgment, but the bottom line is that while I appreciate the subject matter, I don't like feeling as if I'm reading a sermon. Some readers prefer it when the message dominates a story, but I tend to favor those pieces that are a little more subtle, the ones that, like Healer of Carthage, work spirituality into the plot without overwhelming the narrative.

All things considered I was impressed at how Gentry approached faith in this piece but other aspects of the book caught me entirely off guard. For instance, I took more than a passing interest in her exploration of familial ties. I'd go on, but to do so would give away the plot so I'm sorry, you'll have to read the book to discover exactly what I'm getting at, but suffice it to say I was impressed with the complexity and depth Gentry achieved in her portrayal of the Hastings family. 

I also appreciated that Gentry wasn't intimidated by less agreeable subject matter. I didn't need a bloodbath or anything, but I knew going into this book that my enjoyment would hinge on whether or not Gentry could make Roman Carthage read authentically and while I personally might have liked more historical detail, I feel she managed this task fairly well. 

I wasn't entirely sold on the relationship between Lisbeth and Cyprian and the final chapters were a bit too drawn out for my taste, but otherwise I enjoyed the time I spent reading this book and will be interested to see where Gentry takes the story in the future. 

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Time travel was just an unsubstantiated theory. Michael Crichton beach-reads for the gullible. Santa Claus fantasies on par with the possibility of a supreme god. Science couldn't support these flimsy theories, and neither could she. In all her years exploring ruins, not once had Papa found a place like this... an inhabitable domicile that was actually inhabited. 

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The Nine Fold Heaven by Mingmei Yip

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Obtained from: Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours

Read: September 14, 2013

In this mesmerizing new novel, Mingmei Yip draws readers deeper into the exotic world of 1930s Shanghai first explored in Skeleton Women, and into the lives of the unforgettable Camilla, Shadow, and Rainbow Chang. When Shadow, a gifted, ambitious magician, competed with the beautiful Camilla for the affections of organized crime leader Master Lung, she almost lost everything. Hiding out in Hong Kong, performing in a run-down circus, Shadow has no idea that Camilla, too, is on the run with her lover, Jinying--Lung's son. Yet while Camilla and Shadow were once enemies, now their only hope of freedom lies in joining forces to eliminate the ruthless Big Brother Wang. Despite the danger, Shadow, Camilla, and Jinying return to Shanghai. Camilla also has her own secret agenda--she has heard a rumor that her son is alive. And in a city teeming with spies and rivals--including the vengeful Rainbow Chang--each battles for a future in a country on the verge of monumental change.

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I'll be the first to admit I was a little intimidated by Mingmei Yip's The Nine Fold Heaven. I'm not overly familiar with the 1930s nor Chinese culture, so I wasn't sure how I would feel about a story set in pre-revolutionary Shanghai. 

Ultimately though, my concern was ill-placed. Yip does a wonderful job explaining the dark and dangerous world Camilla inhabits so her readers don't really need a lot of background information to enjoy her story. Personally I might have liked more detail with regards to the time period, but beyond that I have few complaints about the time I spent with this book. 

In particular, I liked the ethnic details worked into the story. The novel opens with Camilla visiting a temple in her effort to build a degree of positive karma before trying to find her son. They aren't always as noticeable, but these kind of details appear throughout the book and give it a very authentic feel without overwhelming Western readers who may be less familiar with life in the Far East. 

That being said, not every aspect of the book is as easy to accept. Camilla, for instance, is a difficult character to like. It took me a while to understand her, but in the end I realized this story wouldn't have worked if she were overly empathetic. She needed to be cold and detached on one hand and emotionally vulnerable on the other. Yip understood this and created a really nice contrast and balance between Camilla's background and personal motivations. Again, not easy for the readers, but essential for the story. 

Though written as a standalone I feel this book is best appreciated as a companion to Skeleton Women. It is not essential to read both, but there were times I felt at a disadvantage for not having read Yip's earlier work.

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Despite all the effort put into my training, love had somehow tiptoed into my life. Whether heaven's gift or punishment, I could not tell.

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Check out all the stops on Mingmei Yip's The Nine Fold Heaven Virtual book  Tour

Monday, September 16
Review & Giveaway at A Bookish Affair

Tuesday, September 17
Review at Flashlight Commentary

Wednesday, September 18
Review at Must Read Faster
Interview at Flashlight Commentary

Thursday, September 19
Review at Oh, for the Hook of a Book!

Friday, September 20
Interview at Oh, for the Hook of a Book!

Monday, September 23
Guest Post at Closed the Cover

Tuesday, September 24
Review at A Bookish Libraria

Thursday, September 26
Guest Post at HF Connection

Tuesday, October 1
Review at Sharon’s Garden of Book Reviews

Thursday, October 3
Review at A Chick Who Reads

Friday, October 4
Guest Post at History Undressed

Monday, October 7
Giveaway at Passages to the Past

Wednesday, October 9
Review at Ageless Pages Reviews

Friday, October 11
Review at Silver’s Reviews

Under the Wide Starry Sky by Nancy Horan

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Obtained from: Netgalley

Read: September 4, 2013

The much-anticipated second novel by the author of Loving Frank, the beloved New York Times bestseller, this new work tells the incredible story of the passionate, turbulent relationship between Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson and his wild-tempered American wife, Fanny.In her masterful new novel, Nancy Horan has recreated a love story that is as unique, passionate, and overwhelmingly powerful as the one between Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney depicted so memorably in Loving Frank. Under the Wide and Starry Sky chronicles the unconventional love affair of Scottish literary giant Robert Louis Stevenson, author of classics including Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and American divorcee Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne. They meet in rural France in 1875, when Fanny, having run away from her philandering husband back in California, takes refuge there with her children. Stevenson too is escaping from his life, running from family pressure to become a lawyer. And so begins a turbulent love affair that will last two decades and span the world.

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Robert Louis Stevenson, portrait by Girolamo Nerli 

I began Nancy Horan's Under The Wide Starry Sky with high hopes, but ultimately liked the idea that behind the piece more than the reality. Though I found the narrative offered interesting perspective on Stevenson's personal life, the structure of the novel left much to be desired. Be warned, possible spoilers ahead. 

For one thing, I found the pacing of the novel particularly troublesome. I lost interest in the first few chapters, stopped, read two other books, then came back to it. It isn't that the story isn't intriguing, it was just so slow to progress that I had problems staying engaged with the narrative. 

Another aspect that made this piece something of a challenge was that I felt the telling unbalanced. Most of the book is told from Fanny's point of view, but there are a handful of episodes in which Horan pulls a one-eighty and writes from Stevenson's perspective. I found the inequality confusing and would have been much happier if the couple had enjoyed equal face time with the reader or if the author had limited herself to one or the other of her leads. 

Horan's treatment of Belle was similarly perplexing. The character is introduced to the reader early in the novel, but a personal rift between the girl and her mother removes her from the story for a large portion of the book. If Fanny or Stevenson had reflected on her at all during this separation, I might have felt the the emotional poignancy of their reunion, but they don't and the feelings Horan attempted to throw in at that last moment seemed to come entirely out of left field. I'm sorry, but was I supposed to care? 

There was enough material here for me recognize the story within these pages, but I think Horan might have taken on more than she could handle in her attempt to give that story life. I couldn't empathize with her cast or get lost in their experiences and at the end of the day, I needed to feel that connection to take more than a passing interest in this piece. 

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"I am wondering why you take whatever I say and misconstrue is, madam. You have known me five minutes, not nearly long enough to despise me. It usually takes at least ten."

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Claudia, Wife of Pontius Pilate by Diana Wallis Taylor

Rating: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Obtained from: Netgalley

Read: September 6, 2013

Claudia's life did not start easily. The illegitimate daughter of Julia, reviled and exiled daughter of Caesar Augustus, Claudia spends her childhood in a guarded villa with her mother and grandmother. When Tiberius, who hates Julia, takes the throne, Claudia is wrenched away from her mother to be brought up in the palace in Rome. The young woman is adrift-until she meets Lucius Pontius Pilate and becomes his wife. When Pilate is appointed Prefect of the troublesome territory of Judea, Claudia does what she has always done: she makes the best of it. But unrest is brewing on the outskirts of the Roman Empire, and Claudia will soon find herself and her beloved husband embroiled in controversy and rebellion. Might she find peace and rest in the teaching of the mysterious Jewish Rabbi everyone seems to be talking about? Readers will be whisked through marbled palaces, dusty marketplaces, and idyllic Italian villas as they follow the unlikely path of a woman who warrants only a passing mention in one of the Gospel accounts. Diana Wallis Taylor combines her impeccable research with her flair for drama and romance to craft a tale worthy of legend.

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Engraving, Claudia's Dream

I think I might have liked Diana Wallis Taylor's Claudia, Wife of Pontius Pilate if I favored Christian theme over historic detail, but at the end of the day I'm just not that kind of reader.

When I picked up this piece, I wanted to be transported into this time and place, to explore the intense conflict of human emotions that might have characterized this chapter of this woman's life, to see this particular story from a nontraditional point of view, but sadly, not one of these desires was fulfilled during my reading of Taylor's work.

Beginning to end I felt the author held back, never giving me enough detail to really picture Claudia's Jerusalem. The city is a dull and lifeless backdrop, the narrative never allowing the reader a real understanding of the city's complex energy and rhythms.

More disappointing though was the bland personality and passive nature of the story's heroine. Claudia perpetually goes through the motions, riding the waves rather than taking control and paddling in any given direction. She falls into her marriage as she falls into her faith and forgive me my opinion, but neither portrayal left me particularly convinced of her sincere devotion to either.

Perhaps I've been spoiled by the authentic portrayal of human emotion in Rebecca Kanner's Sinners and the Sea or the multifaceted world inhabited by Orson Card Card's Women of Genesis, but Taylor's work left me bored and uninspired. 

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"You are of royal blood, the granddaughter of an emperor. You must learn early in life to endure what comes your way. We, as women, have no other choice."

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Fair and Tender Ladies by Chris Nickson

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Obtained from: Netgalley

Read: August 28, 2013

1734. When a young country lad comes looking for his sister who’s run away to Leeds, Constable Richard Nottingham isn’t optimistic; too many girls come seeking their fortune. But before a day has passed the young man is found dead, his throat cut. Who could have wanted him dead. The Leeds Nottingham knows is changing. Someone is vandalising the charity school his daughter has founded. There are plans to reopen the workhouse. And Tom Finer, a criminal who vanished years before, has returned. Then the girl the young man came seeking is dragged from the river, drowned. Nottingham, John Sedgwick and Rob Lister find themselves investigating killings where nothing is as it seems.

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Seduced by a gorgeous piece of cover art, I uncharacteristically opted out of my usual background reading, threw caution to the wind and jumped into Chris Nickson's Fair and Tender Ladies a virtual blank slate, far more familiar with the folk song from which it took its name than I was the author or his work.

A quick read, I found Nickson's work refreshingly entertaining. Where most period mysteries focus in some way on the privileged upper class, Fair and Tender Ladies takes place in the streets among the every day citizens of Leeds. Never having studied the city I can't speak to the accuracy of Nickson's portrayal, but I found the atmosphere he created within these pages, the authentic quality of the town and its inhabitants, very appealing.

Again, not having read this author before, I was pleased to discover Fair and Tender Ladies was written as a stand alone. Having started with the latest installment of the Richard Nottingham series I feared I'd be forced to play catch up for much of the novel, but this was not the case. While their pasts aren't fully explained, Nickson provides enough insight for new readers to feel as familiar with his cast as his older fan base. 

A character-driven story with well-plotted mystery, Fair and Tender Ladies is a cleverly penned historical, rich in dramatic and period detail. 

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Twigs and moss were caught in her fair, wet hair. She was small, not even five feet tall, and her face was so young. He rubbed her hands, feeling rough calluses on the palms... 'I think we've just found Jenny Carter.'

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Mother Earth Father Sky by Sue Harrison

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Obtained from: Netgalley/Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours

Read: August 20, 2013

A young woman fights for survival amid the brutality of the last Ice Age. It’s 7056 BC, a time before history. On the first day that Chagak’s womanhood is acknowledged within her Aleut tribe, she unexpectedly finds herself betrothed to Seal Stalker, the most promising young hunter in the village. A bright future lies ahead of Chagak—but in one violent moment, she loses her entire way of life. Left with her infant brother, Pup, and only a birdskin parka for warmth, Chagak sets out across the icy waters on a quest for survival and revenge.

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Prehistories are for a hard sell for me. I don't know why, but they are difficult for me to get into so when I manage to find one that holds my interest, I tend to take notice which brings me to Mother Earth Father Sky by Sue Harrison. 

Like Song of the River, this piece is character heavy, but what is so remarkable is how distinct, well-rounded and realistic each cast member feels. I can't imagine what goes into  painting the motivations, personality and emotional struggles of so characters so vividly, but Harrison's effort certainly isn't wasted. In point of fact, I feel the authentic quality of her cast is what makes not just this piece, but her entire body of work so exceptional. 

Speaking of relatable characters, I should probably mention my attraction to Chagak. Her path is a difficult one, but as a woman who had to overcome sexual abuse, I really admire Harrison for creating a character that doesn't allow the experience to define her life. I've seen authors attempt this story line before, but can honestly say few have pulled it off as well. 

Strong characterization isn't the only aspect of Harrison's work worth mentioning. Her books are long, but they are also overflowing with cultural history. I might be going out on a limb, but I think it safe to say Harrison puts as much into her research as she does developing her plot lines and her cast. Her understanding and respect for the indigenous people of North America emanates from every page, making her work as intriguing as it is entertaining. 

All told, Mother Earth Father Sky is a beautiful story of perseverance and strength amidst incredible hardship, as notable for its content as its flawless presentation. 

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In his joy he laughed and for a moment his laughter seemed as strong as the wind, louder than the sea.

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CHeck out all the stops on sue Harrison's Mother Earth Father Sky and Song of the River Virtual Book Tour!

Monday, August 5
Review at Oh, for the Hook of a Book (Mother Earth Father Sky)

Tuesday, August 6
Review Bitches with Books (Mother Earth Father Sky)

Wednesday, August 7
Guest Post at HF Connection

Thursday, August 8
Review at Oh, for the Hook of a Book (Song of the River)

Monday, August 12
Review at Just One More Chapter (Mother Earth Father Sky)
Review at Closed the Cover (Song of the River)
Interview at Oh, for the Hook of a Book

Tuesday, August 13
Review Bitches with Books (Song of the River)

Wednesday, August 14
Review at Flashlight Commentary (Song of the River)

Thursday, August 15
Review at A Chick Who Reads (Mother Earth Father Sky)

Friday, August 16
Review at Broken Teepee (Mother Earth Father Sky)

Monday, August 19
Review at Carole’s Ramblings & Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell (Mother Earth Father Sky)

Tuesday, August 20
Review at Unabridged Chick (Song of the River)

Wednesday, August 21
Interview at Flashlight Commentary

Thursday, August 22
Review at Book Drunkard (Mother Earth Father Sky)

Friday, August 23
Review at Too Fond (Song of the River)
Review at Broken Teepee (Song of the River)

Monday, August 26
Interview at Bibliophilic Book Blog

Tuesday, August 27
Review at Book Drunkard (Song of the River)

Wednesday, August 28
Review at Flashlight Commentary (Mother Earth Father Sky)

Thursday, August 29
Review at So Many Books, So Little Time (Song of the River)
Review at The Musings of a Book Junkie (Mother Earth Father Sky)

Friday, August 30
Review at Carole’s Ramblings & Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell (Song of the River)