Prohibited! by Delancey Stewart

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Obtained from: Netgalley

Read: January 1, 2015

In 1920s New York, uptown debutante Evie McKenzie can see that the world is changing. And while her parents may think she’s destined for a life of quiet conversation and polite society, she is determined to roar with the twenties—whatever the cost! Evie knows she should really be getting her beauty sleep and dreaming of Roger White, the straight-laced Yale graduate her parents have chosen for her. Instead, she’s been heading out to the local speakeasy… and into the arms of dangerously charming Jack Taylor. But when Evie discovers an unexpectedly wild side to Roger, he’s suddenly competition for smooth-talking Jack—and she has a decision to make. Should she appease her parents… or commit the ultimate rebellion? One thing’s for certain: Evie is going to have a lot of fun making up her mind…

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My decision to pick up Delancey Stewart's Prohibited! was purely self-indulgent. The cover caught my eye, but I really like the 1920s and jacket description sounded light and fun. My track record with new adult lit is decidedly hit and miss, but weighed against the modest length of the book, I figured I'd little to lose. 

Historically speaking, there isn't an abundance of detail in this piece, but what's there speaks directly to the roar and buzz of New York City's jazz scene. Against all odds, Stewart creates a subtle ambiance, giving the book a distinct feel despite its brevity. Roger and Jack are fairly one dimensional, but I liked what Stewart did with Evie. Her sexual awakening paired with her growing independence and sense of self added a layer of depth where I'd not expected it.

Though only six chapters, Prohibited! proved a delightfully diverting piece and one I'd easily recommend to fans of Jax Garren. 

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She had said she was fine, but she worried that Jack had ignited something within her that might never stop burning. And at that moment, she had felt willing to do almost anything to feed that hungry fire simmering in her belly.

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A Soldier of Substance by D.W. Bradbridge

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Obtained from: Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours

Read: January 4, 2015

1644. The smoke of parliamentary musket, cannon, and mortar fire is in the air around the royalist stronghold of Lathom House. Though guards still stand atop its walls, it is besieged on all sides, and it is only a matter of time until the house, along with its embittered and unwavering countess, Lady Charlotte de Tremouille, falls to Parliament’s might. Yet somehow, a royalist spy still creeps, unseen, through its gates, and brings the countess Parliament’s secrets. Barely recovered from the trials of the last few months, Daniel Cheswis is torn from his family and sent north, to uncover the identity of the traitor; though before he can even begin, Cheswis finds himself embroiled in a murder. A woman has been garrotted with cheese wire in her Chester home, suggesting there is more than just the usual hatreds of war at play. As lives are lost and coats are turned on both sides, Cheswis is tasked with finding the murderer, uncovering the traitor, and surviving his soldierly duty long enough to see Lathom House fall. 

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Artist's visualization of Lathom House prior to it's destruction.
Presented in Peter Draper's book The House of Stanley, published in 1864

I didn't think twice when offered D.W. Bradbridge's A Solider of Substance for review. Book one of the Daniel Cheswis series was one of my favorite books of 2014 and I was very exciting about delving into the follow-up.

Part of what I love about this series is that the stories take place during the English Civil War. I am not English and not well-versed in the event, but I love the details Bradbridge works into the narrative. As someone with no background understanding, I think he does a marvelous job outlining both the large and small scale events of the story and he does it without the boring monologues you often see when writers tackle politics through fiction.

Bradbridge's characters also appeal to me. Daniel is an engaging and relatable protagonist, but even the supporting cast is fleshed out. I personally feel characterization an important atmospheric component for any storyteller and admire Bradbridge for the care he takes in presenting Daniel and peers. I will note, A Soldier of Substance is a very masculine tale so the male to female ratio is a little skewed, but I think that fitting to both the period and context of the murder mystery at the heart of the novel.

Bradbridge's ability to keep the reader guessing is matched stroke for stroke by his convincing portrayal of the era. An intelligently written whodunnit, A Soldier of Substance is one book I will certainly be recommending in the future. 

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On reflection, I was pleased that I would get the opportunity to keep my pledge to the Skinner brothers, but I slept uneasily that night. I realised that my career as an intelligencer was not over. On the contrary. It had only just begun.

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Check Out All the Stops on D.W. Bradbridge's A Soldier of Substance Blog Tour Schedule

Monday, January 5
Spotlight & Giveaway at Passages to the Past

Wednesday, January 7
Review at Flashlight Commentary

Saturday, January 10
Review at With Her Nose Stuck in a Book

Tuesday, January 20
Spotlight at A Literary Vacation

Tuesday, January 27
Review at Forever Ashley
Spotlight at Books and Benches

Tuesday, February 3
Spotlight at CelticLady’s Reviews

Friday, February 6
Guest Post & Giveaway at Historical Fiction Obsession

The Shepherdess of Siena by Linda Lafferty

Rating: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Obtained from: Netgalley

Read: December 24, 2014

Raised by her aunt and uncle amidst the rolling hills of the Tuscan countryside, young orphan Virginia Tacci has always harbored a deep love for horses—though she knows she may never have the chance to ride. As a shepherdess in sixteenth-century Italy, Virginia’s possibilities are doubly limited by her peasant class and her gender. Yet while she tends her flock, Virginia is captivated by the daring equestrian feats of the high-spirited Isabella de’ Medici, who rides with the strength and courage of any man, much to the horror of her brother, the tyrannical Granduca Francesco de’ Medici. Inspired, the young shepherdess keeps one dream close to her heart: to race in Siena’s Palio. Twenty-six years after Florence captured Siena, Virginia’s defiance will rally the broken spirit of the Senese people and threaten the pernicious reign of the Granduca. Bringing alive the rich history of one of Tuscany’s most famed cities, this lush, captivating saga draws an illuminating portrait of one girl with an unbreakable spirit.

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After two attempts, I think it safe to say I've a love-hate relationship with Linda Ladderty. The premise of her novels spark my curiosity, but the realities don't sit well on my palate and may indicate a need for greater discretion in the future. I don't mean to sound harsh, I'm actually pretty disappointed, but House of Bathory was hardly the story I'd envisioned when I picked it up and here again, The Shepherdess of Siena failed to impress. 

I pegged the book as a slow starter some forty pages in, things weren't any better by sixty and I officially called code blue on the novel's pacing round about eighty. There is no momentum to this piece… and it centers on a bloody horse race! Call me crazy, but thundering hooves pounding round the piazza shouldn't leave one fighting off the sand man.

The characters were equally uninspiring. I liked Virginia Tacci's struggle against traditional gender roles, but I didn't get much else from the character. I thought Giorgio had potential, but I lost patience with him as soon as he began teaching Virginia to ride and they were only the beginning. How Lafferty made a de’ Medici boring I'll never know, but I couldn't care less about Isabella and found her scenes some of the most mundane of the entire novel. She's in the middle of the action, but as a character, she's downright dull. 

I hate to say it, but I didn’t find the time I spent with The Shepherdess of Siena at all pleasant. The style didn't appeal and there simply wasn't enough to the subject matter to compensate.

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“She has a gift, the horses are never wrong,” Cesare Brunelli said. “they recognize her spirit—a wild spirit like their own.”

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Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Obtained from: Personal Kindle Library
Read: December 28, 2014

Cold Mountain is a novel about a soldier’s perilous journey back to his beloved near the Civil War's end. At once a love story and a harrowing account of one man’s long walk home, Cold Mountain introduces a new talent in American literature. Based on local history and family stories passed down by Frazier’s great-great-grandfather, Cold Mountain is the tale of a wounded Confederate soldier, Inman, who walks away from the ravages of the war and back home to his prewar sweetheart, Ada. His odyssey thru the devastated landscape of the soon-to-be-defeated South interweaves with Ada’s struggle to revive her father’s farm, with the help of an intrepid young drifter named Ruby. As their long-separated lives begin to converge at the close of the war, Inman and Ada confront the vastly transformed world they’ve been delivered. Frazier reveals insight into human relations with the land and the dangers of solitude. He also shares with the great 19th century novelists a keen observation of a society undergoing change. Cold Mountain recreates a world gone by that speaks to our time.

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I was hesitant to tackle Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain. The novel is so popular that I honestly wondered what value another review might hold or if I could possibly compose something with any degree of originality. I worried that I might not like the novel, that the style of the narrative wouldn't appeal and that I'd be forced to acknowledge the book didn't live up to the movie it had inspired. Thankfully, my anxiety proved baseless, for I enjoyed the novel far more than I'd dared hope when I acquired it.

The story wasn't exactly new to me, but I found the details that didn't make the screen improve the tale beyond measure. The adaptation isn't without merit for it emulates the spirit of Frazier's work quite well, but there is no further comparison to be made. The depth with which the author portrays Inman and Ada simply doesn't translate to Minghella's film. The supporting cast enjoys similar treatment and their back-stories add further insight to the human side of war and the harsh realities of life in the shadow of such conflict. The fiction is an assemble piece and I found the scope much to my liking, the intricacies of it giving color and tang to a very intimate story of emotion and solitary struggle.   

The cadence of Frazier's prose speaks to a time long gone. It's simple and reflective, but there is a lyrical quality about the language, an inherent accent and inflection that echoes the speech, journals, newspapers and letters of the mid-eighteen hundreds. It speaks to the senses, resounding the tragedy of war and loss that have come to characterize the era. I recognize that many readers have had difficulty with the measured pace of the novel, but I personally feel the unhurried nature of the narrative one of its greatest strengths. Frazier's careful restraint is appropriate to the subject matter and tone he aimed to strike with the piece. A hasty delivery might have been more exciting, but I doubt the final product would have been as affecting. 

The finale felt rushed, the odyssey of Inman's travels and Ada's transformation culminating a few scant pages of borrowed time, but I'm still quite happy with the time I spent on Cold Mountain. It is a moving piece, sorrowful in many ways, but as beautiful and haunting as the Blue Ridge Mountain from which it takes its name.  

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He talked to her of the great waste of years between then and now. A long time gone. And it was pointless, he said, to think how those years could have been put to better use, for he could hardly have put them to worse. There was no recovering them now. You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell, Inman said, for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you are. All your grief hasn't changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You're left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is go on or not. But if you go on, it's knowing you carry your scars with you.

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Walking the Labyrinth by Lisa Goldstein

Rating: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Obtained from: Netgalley

Read: December 22, 2014

Backstage at a vaudeville in Oakland, California, a reporter sits down for an interview with Callan Allalie, patriarch of a family of traveling magicians. As the journalist asks his questions, Callan’s sisters dazzle him with tricks too delicate for the stage. The night quickly whirls out of control as all manner of untold magic warps the writer’s mind, and the next morning, he can’t be sure that he witnessed it at all. Sixty years later, a private detective confronts Molly, the last descendent of the Allalie clan, to ask questions about one of Callan’s sisters, who seemed to vanish after the performance in Oakland. As Molly delves into the mysteries of the Allalies, she discovers a connection to a shadowy organization of nineteenth-century mystics—and a family secret that will change the way she looks at the world forever.

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I was sold on Lisa Goldstein's Walking the Labyrinth the moment I read the description. A vaudeville inspired mystery sounded original and intriguing so I felt pretty optimist when I settled down and cracked it open. Unfortunately the execution left much to be desired and I soon found myself struggling through the narrative for little more than the personal satisfaction of reaching the final page.

My troubles began early on. John and Molly's fast friendship didn't hold water, but to add insult to injury, the couple were so one dimensional that I couldn't bring myself to care about either them or their plight. Goldstein's supporting cast is similarly underdeveloped, with many possessed of purpose so insignificant that I often wondered at their being included at all. The irregular timeline complicated matters as individuals could appear or disappear without introduction or farewell which is something I personally found both irritating and awkward.

More than that, however, Goldstein failed to adequately mask the secrets at the heart of the story and expects the audience to jump at the blatantly obvious. Take for example the moment in which John makes 'all a lie' from the Allalie. He is presented as something of a genius, while Molly issues a gasp of surprised awe over the revelation of her own family name. I contributed an exasperated eye roll to the scene for I'd deciphered this shallowly disguised contrivance from the get-go and couldn't understand why it'd taken the leads a full third of the novel to make the same discovery. I wasn't impressed, but the instance was only the beginning as subsequent chapters proved equally if not more self-evident and uninspired.

Bottom line, Walking the Labyrinth didn't work for me. The idea had potential, but it is never realized.

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One proof, however, I am prepared to give, and that is the ineluctable fact of our magick. We of the OotL are able to create and destroy, to bind and to loose, to bend the world to our will. There is no other order in all of Britain, I daresay in all the world, that is able to do this. Our guides in the spirit realm, revealed to us by our guide upon this Earth, Miss Emily Wethers, have shown us miracles that no man can deny: we have all seen them. We alone hold the wisdom that has descended to us through the ages.

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The Blood of The Fifth Knight by E.M. Powell

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Obtained from: Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours/Netgalley

Read: December 24, 2014

England, 1176. King Henry II has imprisoned his rebellious Queen for attempting to overthrow him. But with her conspirators still at large and a failed assassination attempt on his beautiful mistress, Rosamund Clifford, the King must take action to preserve his reign. Desperate, Henry turns to the only man he trusts: a man whose skills have saved him once before. Sir Benedict Palmer answers the call, mistakenly believing that his family will remain safe while he attends to his King. As Palmer races to secure the throne for the King, neither man senses the hand of a brilliant schemer, a mystery figure loyal to Henry’s traitorous Queen who will stop at nothing to see the King defeated.

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Eleanor prepares to poison Rosamund in a
Pre-Raphaelite painting by Evelyn De Morgan

It's been almost a year since I read E.M. Powell's The Fifth Knight, but her follow-up novel took me right back. From the first page, it was as if not a day had passed since I was introduced to Benedict Palmer and Theodosia and I was very impressed with how easily the author managed to continue their story. 

Like its predecessor, Blood of the Fifth Knight struck me for Powell's ability to create dramatic tension around an event I was already familiar with. Henry's relationship with Rosamund Clifford was not new to me, but Powell painted it in a new and intriguing light. The drama in her presentation nicely balances the predictability of history and legend, allowing even those in the know be swept up in the telling.

Speaking of balance, I can't express how much I appreciate Powell's evenhanded approach to the masculine and feminine elements of this story. The social rhythms of medieval society often lend themselves to one-sided fiction and I think it remarkable that Powell was able to find middle ground with such material.

Strictly speaking I think it possible to read the books as stand-alone novels, but I personally wouldn't recommend it. Becket's legacy is as much a character of the second novel as his person was the first and I feel the beauty in that best understood by those who've tackled the books chronologically.

Bottom line, I enjoyed The Blood of the Fifth Knight as much as I did its predecessor. An exciting historical that combines murder, mystery, romance and conspiracy.

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Forget knighthood, kingdoms, battles. The murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, the murder that Henry now did penance for. The murder that he, Sir Benedict Palmer, had been present at. What mattered now was to keep his family safe.

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Check Out All the Stops on E.M. Powell's The Blood of the Fifth Knight Blog Tour Schedule

Thursday, January 1
Review at Flashlight Commentary

Friday, January 2
Spotlight at With Her Nose Stuck in a Book

Monday, January 5
Review at Beth’s Book Nook Blog

Thursday, January 8
Spotlight & Giveaway at Passages to the Past

Monday, January 12
Review & Giveaway at Broken Teepee

Tuesday, January 13
Review at Oh, For the Hook of a Book

Wednesday, January 14
Interview at Oh, For the Hook of a Book
Spotlight at A Literary Vacation

Friday, January 16
Review at Historical Fiction Obsession

Saturday, January 17
Interview at Dianne Ascroft
Guest Post & Giveaway at Historical Fiction Obsession

Monday, January 19
Review at Ageless Pages Reviews

Tuesday, January 20
Review at Books and Benches
Spotlight & Giveaway at Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus More

Wednesday, January 21
Review at Just One More Chapter

Wednesday, January 28
Review at Kinx’s Book Nook

Friday, January 30
Review at Bookramblings

Sunday, February 1
Review at Carole’s Ramblings

Monday, February 2
Guest Post at The Lit Bitch

Tuesday, February 3
Review at Layered Pages
Spotlight at Let them Read Books

Wednesday, February 4
Spotlight at CelticLady’s Reviews

Friday, February 6
Review at The Never-Ending Book