About the Book:

“Masterfully blending true events with fiction, this blockbuster historical thriller delivers a page-turning murder mystery set on the sixteenth-century Oxford University campus.

Giordano Bruno was a monk, poet, scientist, and magician on the run from the Roman Inquisition on charges of heresy for his belief that the Earth orbits the sun and that the universe is infinite. This alone could have got him burned at the stake, but he was also a student of occult philosophies and magic.

In S. J. Parris’s gripping novel, Bruno’s pursuit of this rare knowledge brings him to London, where he is unexpectedly recruited by Queen Elizabeth I and is sent undercover to Oxford University on the pretext of a royal visitation. Officially Bruno is to take part in a debate on the Copernican theory of the universe; unofficially, he is to find out whatever he can about a Catholic plot to overthrow the queen.

His mission is dramatically thrown off course by a series of grisly murders and a spirited and beautiful young woman. As Bruno begins to discover a pattern in these killings, he realizes that no one at Oxford is who he seems to be. Bruno must attempt to outwit a killer who appears obsessed with the boundary between truth and heresy.

Like The Dante Club and The Alienist, this clever, sophisticated, exceptionally enjoyable novel is written with the unstoppable narrative propulsion and stylistic flair of the very best historical thrillers.”

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

This is the kind of murder mystery, suspense thriller that I love to read.  There is so much more than just the traditional detective novel going on here.  And since it is a historical fiction setting, this mystery provides a feel of reality that is hard to come by in the usual murder mysteries that there are so many of.  This book has so much going on besides just the mystery that the amount of suspense that this book offers is magnified through the background story, as well as the mystery Parris has developed.

Bruno, a Catholic monk, enlisted through the English crown of Queen Elizabeth I to investigate possible Catholic conspiracies to overthrow the throne, while working on defending uncovering murders in the very traditional Oxford University, is an impossible challenge in and of itself.  Combine with that the fact that Bruno can’t very easily leave England, since he is a wanted man throughout Europe, due to his heretical beliefs according to the Spanish Inquisition.  This is a character that beautifully defines the adage of being “caught between a rock and hard place.”  With the religious frictions between the Catholics, Protestants, and the Church of England and the overwhelming danger of having beliefs that are not considered appropriate, because they are in opposition to the teachings of “The Church,” there is danger on nearly every page of this book.

The entire premise of the story, not just the mystery, but also the setting is nothing but a conglomeration of frictional factions all struggling for power over the other.  This was not just a good use of plot in developing the mystery, but Parris truly capitalizes on the oppressive nature of this particular time period.  Parris does a wonderful job of demonstrating that she has an understanding of the history she is writing about, and she has used that knowledge to capitalize on the development of a fun fictional mystery novel.   Also, Bruno is not a traditional “police detective,” which makes this mystery simply a much more engrossing read in the genre of mysteries.

In addition to this, Parris had demonstrated a unique understanding of the human character.  Her characters all have vast, and very diverse personalities.  However, all of them have depth, and add a lot to the challenging controversies of this story.  Additionally, the main character, in addition to his love of the Copernican teachings, and his Catholic faith, tends to study more questionable topics such as alchemy, the occult, and even magic.  So, in a time of great political and religious upheaval, combined with a great deal of superstition and fear, on top of a homicidal renegade on the loose, and you have the makings of a book that is guaranteed to keep readers guessing.  I found that when I got to the end of the book, I had not figured out who the killer was until just before the very end. What more can you as for in a murder mystery?

For more information about this book, and its author be sure to visit the following website:

Washington Post Book Review

Interview With The Author

About the Author

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

Abe Books

Barnes and Noble

Originally posted 2011-06-24 06:00:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

About the Book:

The critically acclaimed author of The Madonnas of Leningrad (“Elegant and poetic, the rare kind of book that you want to keep but you have to share” –Isabel Allende), Debra Dean returns with The Mirrored World, a breathtaking novel of love and madness set in 18th century Russia. Transporting readers to St. Petersburg during the reign of Catherine the Great, Dean brilliantly reconstructs and reimagines the life of St. Xenia, one of Russia’s most revered and mysterious holy figures, in a richly told and thought-provoking work of historical fiction that recounts the unlikely transformation of a young girl, a child of privilege, into a saint beloved by the poor.

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

This is a book that I received from the publisher as an advance copy read.  I think the original offer was initiated due to my love of the previous novel of Dean’s I had reviewed – The Madonnas of Leningrad.  Consequently, I was looking forward to this work to see where Dean goes from here.  Now, having read the book, I find myself with mixed responses — and for some of those responses I’m not even really sure why.  The story is a fascinating topic — set in Russia; a setting I always love to read about.  Dean’s love of the Russian people and place resonates in this book as much as it did in her previous work.  And there is certainly no doubt that Dean’s passion for the Russian world resonates strongly throughout the piece.  

But from the beginning there is something disconnected about the entire story.  And I found this disconnected feeling quite frequently distracting.  What I can’t tell is if it is due to the approach in Dean’s writing — or the fact that the primary character of the book is an individual about which there appears to be very little known from the beginning.  

The narrator is the first thing I struggled with.  The story is about St. Xenia, of Russia; but the whole thing is narrated in the voice of her cousin.  This is one reason that the book has a disconnected feeling.  Everything is told in the third person removed perspective — making it hard for the reader to connect with the primary character.  Adding to that is the fact that I found the narrator’s character and story more compelling than that of Xenia, herself.  I wanted to hear more about the narrator’s life, marriage, and the impossible world that Dean created around her. But since that wasn’t Dean’s primary focus, I found myself frustrated in that respect.  And yet — if these stories has been broken in two — and not told in tandem — they would have each made a fantastic story.  As it was I felt like they kept competing for dominance with each other.   

Another thing that I struggled with was the light weight feel of the story over all.  I felt like this was more of a fairy tale — with little background detail, and almost no insight into the character’s inner thoughts and motivations.  It just never developed much beyond the very basic.  But I am not sure if this is Dean’s fault — so much as that there is very little known about Xenia from the start — as I stated earlier.  I was expecting a significant confrontation between the Tsar and Xenia herself, as a representation between the deep religious culture, and the political climate of the age in Russia.  But I felt like that was only alluded to, and never fully developed.  Once again leaving me frustrated.  

Over all, this book provided a great summer read.  It moves quickly, and gives some of the feel of the Russian culture.  It can be read quickly — but it doesn’t demand a lot of effort on the part of the reader.

 For more information about this book and its author be sure to visit the following websites:

Publisher’s Website

Books Without Any Pictures Book Review

Debra Dean Biography

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

Originally posted 2012-07-31 06:46:11. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

About the Book:

This long-awaited novel by the author of The House at Riverton begins with a long lost letter. Its contents compel young Edie Burchill to journey to the eerie realm of Millderhurst Castle, where her mother, then just 13 years old, waited out the London Blitz. What Edie learns about those distant hours in that faraway place will forever change her view of her mother and herself. A subtle, artfully constructed story about place, the past, and time’s reverberations.

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

I have to admit that after reading The Forgotten Garden I had a lot of expectations for this book.  After all, I fell in love with that one — so I was expecting another opportunity to get lost in a book — and want the world to go away.  And to a certain extent this book fulfilled expectations.  But somehow I came away from this one feeling like some of the magic was missing that made the other book so fun to read.  Consequently I felt like this book was more of an effort to get through.

For some reason it was the characters that just didn’t quite work for me in this book.  I just felt like there wasn’t as much depth as I have come to expect from Ms. Morton’s characters — which left me feeling like something was missing from the whole story.  Edie just didn’t seem to be all that engaged with the world around her.  She didn’t have much in the way of curiosity, in the face of the building mystery throughout the story.  So for that reason, the main person looking for the answers never really seemed to get all that involved in the story, from the beginning.  Combine that with the sisters, who are obviously not what they appear to be, even from the very beginning of the book — and I just came away feeling like there was quite a bit of a let down where this story was concerned.

On the positive side, however.  The story is very well conceived — and it really was intriguing.  Revolving around the mysterious book written by an illusive author, The Mud Man is rumored to be surrounded with myriad questions, and intense debate on how much, if any of the book is grounded in reality.  Add to that the compelling historical setting of the back story — in World War II, during the bombing of London, not to mention the creepy castle setting that is just this side of collapse, and is perfectly adapted to the stuff of nightmares — and you really have the makings for a great story.  And I think this one would have delivered much more if the characters had been a little stronger in the development.  But I can’t fault the story line, and I love the creativity demonstrated by Ms. Morton in pulling together various story lines, and building them into one cohesive whole.

The over all thing that I think drove me crazy about this book was simply the unasked questions that continue to skulk in between the lines of each page.  The mysterious letter, that Edie fails to ask her mother about, the questions about the past, and failure to engage the sisters on a more personal, and even intimate level — it all made for a frustrating read.  There just seemed to be something about the whole thing that was off.  And I know this was a mystery.  But for some reason, it just didn’t flow smoothly for me, and I felt like every page was more of an effort that an adventure.

For more information about this book, and its author be sure to visit the following websites:

Kate Morton Website

An Interview with the Author

Publisher’s Website

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

Abe Books

Barnes and Noble

Originally posted 2011-01-20 07:00:28. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

About the Book:

Faith, I tell them, is a mystery, elusive to many, and never easy to explain.

Sweeping and lyrical, spellbinding and unforgettable, David Ebershoff’s The 19th Wife combines epic historical fiction with a modern murder mystery to create a brilliant novel of literary suspense.

It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of a family’s polygamous history is revealed, including how a young woman became a plural wife.

Soon after Ann Eliza’s story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds–a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father’s death.

And as Ann Eliza’s narrative intertwines with that of Jordan’s search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love and faith.

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

This book was a huge let down.  The dual story lines tended to detract from both of the stories, which made it difficult to follow either one of them.  Also something that made it even harder to follow was the presentation of fiction as if it were fact, with footnotes, and documentation.  If found it very hard to orient to what I know of Utah history, and culture — and to separate that from what was being presented in this book.  I found this book to be more of an alternate time line of Utah history, more than anything else, in some instances. I also found myself wondering if the author has ever visited Utah, since his portrayals of Utah cities was almost as fictional as the story that is being told.

I was particularly disturbed by this books apparent ulterior motive, which I felt the author was trying to force feed me, as the reader.  I have never objected to opposing opinions, coming from a background that I know many people object to.  However,  I felt that the author was highly critical of a peoples religious beliefs, and he was looking for everything he could find to condemn the people, with only the supporting evidence of apostates, and those that have chosen to leave the LDS church.  I found it almost irritating, and also very disruptive to the story as a whole.  The author came across very high handed in his condemnation of the LDS culture, and the existing culture of Utah as a whole.

All that aside, I did find the characters very well drawn, and their development throughout the story was consistent, and believable.  I actually found that I enjoyed the modern story of Jordan, and his escape from the fundamentalist group, and the difficulties of his mother to be a very well developed story.  I just feel that it would have been a more effective story, if it had been separated from that of Eliza Ann Young.  The shifting back and forth, especially with the author’s apparent commentary on the LDS lifestyle as a whole, was very detracting from the power that the story of Jordan could have been.

This is probably not a book that I would choose to read again, as I felt that the author had more in mind than just presenting a well conceived work of fiction.

For more information about this book, and its author be sure to visit the following websites:

Author’s Website

The 19th Wife Homepage

Publisher’s Website

Powell’s Books Author Interview

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

AbeBooks.com

Barnes and Noble

Originally posted 2011-04-14 06:35:36. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

About the Book:

Sagesse LaBasse, the teenage protagonist of Claire Messud’s The Last Life, lives in a fragile world held together by the secrets of its past. Her family owns the Hotel Bellevue, a summer retreat for the well-to-do, set on the cliffs of southern France; the view is back toward Algeria, which her paternal grandparents fled during its struggle for independence from France. As her grandmother laments, “Every morning, I wake up and look out my window at the Mediterranean sea, vast and creeping, and I smell the pines and the heat on the breeze, rising up the clifftop, and I’m in Algiers again. I live, still, in my heart, in Algeria.”

The loss of their homeland is always present to the LaBasses, and the consequent search for identity both reflects and compounds other difficulties. Sagesse’s father (“fleshy, ingratiating, explosive”) languishes under his own father’s control, and is often unfaithful to Sagesse’s mother, an American who tries to pass as French. Meanwhile, their young son, Etienne, is so severely mentally and physically impaired that his birth is likened to “the clanging of their prison door.” Sagesse’s grandmother looks on with cool resignation, and her grandfather, the family’s hot-headed patriarch, will let no one rest. When, late one night, the old man fires his rifle into a group of children swimming at the hotel’s pool, no one is seriously injured, but the family’s livelihood is put at risk, and long-simmering resentments find an outlet.

Sagesse is the perfect narrator for this fractured situation. She is neither French, nor American; not a girl, yet not quite a woman. Her grandfather’s rash act causes her to lose her friends at school, and she is forced to “seek out the very pot-smokers I had…readily disparaged little over a month before.” These new friends, upon realizing her family’s past (having been French colonists, they are suspected of being racists, and members of the National Front) and relative wealth, also abandon her. With guests trickling away from the hotel, and tensions rising within the LaBasse family, Sagesse tries to understand what remains, and what place there might be for her.

Fortunately, while her life may be painful, she never finds it dull. Sagesse’s language is rich and evocative, full of descriptive power. Here, for example, she witnesses the market: “There were vegetable men and fruit women and stalls selling both, blushing mounds of peaches alongside plump and purple eggplants…pale, splayed organs of fennel pressing their ridged tubes and feathered ends up against the sugar-speckled, wrinkled carcasses of North African dates…the fishmongers sold their bullet-eyed, silver-skinned, slippery catch, blood-streaked fillets and orbed, scored steaks, milky scallops and encrusted oysters….” And here, a painting of the Bay of Algiers: “its apron of azure sea, erratically white-capped, broken by the sandstone finger of the port…the white rise of the city, a thousand precise terraces and roofs climbing into the sunlit sky, the European curlicues and the higgledy-piggledy casbah, all their outlines drawn as if with a single hair, interspersed with delicate little palms and cypresses and other trees of variegated greens, and with broad, brown avenues like branches.”

A brilliant, complex world is formed by the accretion of these images, and they are juxtaposed and spur each other seamlessly, multiplying atmosphere and complicating plot lines. While most of the novel’s events take place around 1990, Sagesse tells of them from a time almost a decade later (when she is a graduate student of the “history of ideas” at Columbia). This frame, constructed of occasional asides and short passages, allows a fluidity where revelations from the past and future cause momentum to shift and whirl — the dead rise, their movements sharper and words more portentous with the reader’s knowledge of coming tragedy. This later perspective also enables Sagesse to add deft hints and wise commentary. Looking back on herself, for instance, she says, “Children do not have words to ask and so do not imagine asking; not asking and not imagining, they eradicate distance: they take for granted that everything, someday, will be understood.”

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

This is a book that I am still on the fence about.  I can’t really claim to have loved it or hated it.  For some reason, I just felt like this book was never really going any where — and I kept wondering when it was going to get to the point.  It is a strange mix of an interesting story, and an impassive protagonist.  It left me frustrated and wanting more, while at the same time appreciating the story telling skills of Ms. Messud.

I think there were two major problems that really rolled into one major issue for me in this book.  The protagonist, Sagesse, (Literally translated — wisdom), is a young teenage girl standing in the middle of two vastly different cultures, and a family tree that contains even more national influences than that.  With her family origins coming from the United States, France, Algeria, and growing up on the Mediterranean, Sagesse just doesn’t seem to fit in any where.  But what made it hard for me to make a connection with this character was the fact that she didn’t seem to have any emotions about anything.  She just seemed to be very aloof, and impersonal.  The choice of language that Sagesse uses at times through out the book seemed to magnify that draw back.  At times in this book I found myself wondering if this was a young woman that felt anything at all — which made it hard for me, as a reader, to get involved in the story.  I just couldn’t get invested with the characters as a whole.  This is especially apparent in what Sagesse has to go through, with all the trauma, loss, and personal struggle to find a place to belong, and yet no emotional reaction to anything.

I did enjoy the basic story.  It had a lot of elements that really made for an interesting background.  And the vast differences of the various nationalities, and the struggles of Sagesse, as a teenager, proved to be very interesting for a story line.  Unfortunately this strength couldn’t overcome the things about the book that kept frustrating me.

For more information about this book, and its author be sure to visit the following websites:

Salon Book Review

The New York Times Book Review

New York State Writers Institute Biography

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

Originally posted 2012-03-29 14:53:31. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

About the Book:

“Weaving a brilliant latticework of family legend, loss, and love, Téa Obreht, the youngest of The New Yorker’s twenty best American fiction writers under forty, has spun a timeless novel that will establish her as one of the most vibrant, original authors of her generation.

In a Balkan country mending from years of conflict, Natalia, a young doctor, arrives on a mission of mercy at an orphanage by the sea. By the time she and her lifelong friend Zóra begin to inoculate the children there, she feels age-old superstitions and secrets gathering everywhere around her. Secrets her outwardly cheerful hosts have chosen not to tell her. Secrets involving the strange family digging for something in the surrounding vineyards. Secrets hidden in the landscape itself.

But Natalia is also confronting a private, hurtful mystery of her own: the inexplicable circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. After telling her grandmother that he was on his way to meet Natalia, he instead set off for a ramshackle settlement none of their family had ever heard of and died there alone. A famed physician, her grandfather must have known that he was too ill to travel. Why he left home becomes a riddle Natalia is compelled to unravel.

Grief struck and searching for clues to her grandfather’s final state of mind, she turns to the stories he told her when she was a child. On their weeklytrips to the zoo he would read to her from a worn copy of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, which he carried with him everywhere; later, he told her stories of his own encounters over many years with “the deathless man,” a vagabond who claimed to be immortal and appeared never to age. But the most extraordinary story of all is the one her grandfather never told her, the one Natalia must discover for herself. One winter during the Second World War, his childhood village was snowbound, cut off even from the encroaching German invaders but haunted by another, fierce presence: a tiger who comes ever closer under cover of darkness. “These stories,” Natalia comes to understand, “run like secret rivers through all the other stories” of her grandfather’s life. And it is ultimately within these rich, luminous narratives that she will find the answer she is looking for.”

About the Book:  ★★★★★★

Some books — as crazy as it sounds — a reader will fall in love with even before opening the book.  This book is one of them.  (Ok — I will admit it.  I love tigers.  I have always been fascinated with them.)  And once I started reading the book, I was not disappointed. 

The setting was the only part of the book that I found a little frustrating.  And it wasn’t in a bad way really.  It was just that sometimes I felt like it wasn’t really grounded in a tangible place.  I felt like I should have known where it was — but then something would happen and I would find myself confused again about the location.  That is not to say that this is necessarily a bad thing in this story.  This sense of slight confusion about time and place actually added an extra depth to the story for some reason.  It helped the reader to feel some of the confusion of this war torn country, and the discomfort of feeling that the world the characters inhabited was constantly shifting, and nothing was what it really appeared to be.  This helped add credibility to the slightly mystical quality of the story line — and in the end it actually worked.

The characters, however, were absolutely captivating.  I found myself constantly wanting to know more about each of the characters, and their history.  The story is developed in such a way that only pieces of the story are developed at a time, and they alternate between characters throughout the book.  So the only thing you become aware of right from the beginning is the present state of the Tiger, the Tiger’s Wife, and the three main characters — the Deathless Man, and a Natalia, and her grandfather.  The reader then follows the characters through the back stories that brought the characters to the present point in time throughout the remainder of the book. 

The writing and story development are both very effective in this book, and combined with the strong characters and the intriguing setting this book is a wonderful read.  Added to these is the mystery of the subtle ways in how these characters lives come together and as a reader I found that this book was one that was hard to put down.

For more information about this book, and its author be sure to visit the following websites:

Tea Obreht Website

LA Times Book Review

Author Interview

The Cornell Daily Sun Interview

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

Originally posted 2011-11-02 10:11:23. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

About the Book:

“Hoffman’s characters are always moving back and forth, challenging our perceptions, daring us to judge them.”—New York Times Book Review

The Red Garden introduces us to the luminous and haunting world of Blackwell, Massachusetts. Hoffman offers a transforming glimpse of small-town America, presenting us with some three hundred years of passion, dark secrets, loyalty, and redemption in a web of tales.

From the town’s founder, a brave young woman from England who has no fear of blizzards or bears, to the young man who runs away to New York City, the characters in The Red Garden are extraordinary and vivid: a young wounded Civil War soldier who is saved by a neighbor, a woman who meets a fiercely human historical character, a poet who falls in love with a blind man, a mysterious traveler who comes to town in the year when summer never arrives. At the center of everyone’s life is a garden where only red plants can grow, and where the truth can be found by those who dare to look. The Red Garden is as unforgettable as it is moving.”

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

When I first started this book I wasn’t very impressed.  In fact, I kept wondering what was the point of the story, and what was Hoffman trying to express.  Granted, epic works are hard to follow quite often due to the constantly changing character line up, as the only thing that stays constant is the setting that the whole story develops in.  And this one is particularly unusual because it covers over a hundred years in just under 200 pages.  This story is also a little different from other epic works in that it reads more like short stories about one person for each chapter of the book, and how that one individual interacts with the other people that live in this small little, isolated town. 

What finally caught my attention in this book is that it reminded me of my grandmother.  (No this isn’t a Freudian thing.)  My grandmother was always telling family stories.  They all had varying shades of fact mixed in with family lore.  These were stories that have been handed down to me through her own telling, in exactly the same way she received them.  Each generation has stories about the family, and the amusing things that each member of the family participates in.  As the family gets larger, and continues to grow more people are pulled in through marriages, the birth of children, and diminishes through death, and people leaving.  It is this constant changing through growth and attrition. But all of these stories take place in a small little universe of origin — the city where the family predominantly inhabits.  That is the feeling that comes through in this book.  The characters move on and off stage, and gives us just a small glimpse of how this small little town came to be, grew into what it was, and continues to develop as time moves on. This is a book about the folklore of a small town, and how the people come together to help create that folklore.

As I continued reading I came to appreciate how much a place is more than just somewhere we live.  Where we come from defines us as individuals.  It gives us a sense of belonging, and a grounding for us as people; we belong to the group that inhabites the place — family, friends, enemies, loves, and associations, all of them can be found within our own little universe.  This is the reason that a place takes on a character of its own.  It is as if a place will have characteristics that thrive through folklore, and the communal memory that survives from generation to generation.  This book is an excellent example of this concept.  There are no primary characters — as they keep changing generations with each passing chapter.  But rather than putting the reader off, since there is no one character to attach to — it allows the reader to attach to the setting, and the mystique that makes it up.  This is a unique approach to presenting a fascinating story because it gives the reader the opportunity to reflect on what makes one place different from another — and how much a place will define us, more than anything else around us.

For more information about this book and its author be sure to visit the following websites:

Alice Hoffman Website

Author Profile and Interview

Washington Times Book Review

The Los Angeles Times Book Review

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

Abe Books

Originally posted 2011-07-29 06:00:24. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

About the Book:

A poignant and inspirational love story set in Burma, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats spans the decades between the 1950s and the present.  When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he might be…until they find a love letter he wrote many years ago, to a Burmese woman they have never heard of. Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father’s past, Julia decides to travel to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will reaffirm the reader’s belief in the power of love to move mountains.

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

This is a book that I have dramatically different responses to.  The story, itself, is a wonderful read — and one I really enjoyed.  But, perhaps one of the reviews I have found online described best what I also felt about the book.  It could have been an amazing story!  As it was, it was simply OK.  

One of the things that really stands out in this book, and sets it apart as potentially amazing, is also the element that I felt left me wanting more.  That is the development of the characters.  The connection between Tin Win and Mi Mi is very well developed — particularly in portraying the struggles that bring them together.  It is the disabilities that serve as the connection between these two characters that makes for a unique read for this story.  But while the relationship that joins these characters together, it is interesting that I felt like there was something lacking in their individual character development.  I just came away wishing there was more to them and their individual personalities.  

Sendker’s love of the setting of Burma comes through very clearly in this book.  But it is another element that I felt like it was interestingly strong, and surprisingly weak at the same time.  While it is very apparent that the appreciation for the country is one the author seeks to share with his readers, somehow that doesn’t translate into a strong development of the setting as an element of the story.  I have read several stories set in the Burma and I have found that it is one of those settings that create another, almost mystical element of a story that tends to take on almost strong character proportions.  But this story never quite crosses this threshold.  

Overall — I did enjoy this read, and found that it has a great idea.  And the characters and their unique development due to the blindness element of the story adds a different element to the reader’s experience.  The ability of Tin Win to connect with the world around him through his ability to hear really opens a world for the reader that they will probably never know or appreciate, other than through this type of descriptive story.  But its sudden stop and the strange disconnect between the two different lives described of Tin Win also left me wanting more.

For more information about this author and his book be sure to visit the following websites:

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats Website

Publisher’s Weekly Book Review

Reading Group Guide

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

Originally posted 2013-02-17 18:18:57. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

About the Book:

“There were no surprises in Gatlin County.
We were pretty much the epicenter of the middle of nowhere.
At least, that’s what I thought.
Turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
There was a curse.
There was a girl.
And in the end, there was a grave.

Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she’s struggling to conceal her power and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.

Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town’s oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.”

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

This was a surprise book, that really caught me off guard.  I have been shying away from many of the newest teenage angst, coming of age in the supernatural world following in the wake of the Harry Potter series.  Don’t get me wrong — I enjoyed the series as much as everyone else.  But I get frustrated with the books that everyone seems to be talking about.  Hype fiction just gets to be so over publicized — much to the determent of so many other excellent authors out there.  Combine that with the latest trend in young adult fiction of vampires, werewolves, ghosts, witches and everything else dealing with the supernatural — and I am starting to feel like they are all the same.  Consequently I was a little surprised when I came across this one and was interested.  (OK, I will admit it — it was the cover that drew me in.) 

This one I particularly loved because of the unique approach of Garcia and Stohl.  Primarily this is a story that is grounded in the deep south, and is based in a family’s history.  Surrounding this family is generation after generation of rumor and suspicion about the bizarre things that are attributed to the members of this family.  Why did I find this approach so unique? Well — because everyone knows what it is like to have one member, or family of a community where they grew up that has these types of stories attached to them.  The local haunted houses that all the kids dare each other to break into as a right of passage, the strange old man on the next block over that is always yelling at the kids to stay off his property, and has unintentionally invited the mischief making of the local kids, or the crazy bag lady that has more stories about her — but no one seems to know the truth.  It was just simply a premise that was easy for readers to identify with.  And — to be honest — uncovering the truth behind those rumors always makes for a great story. 

I also felt particularly drawn to the characters because I was always one of those kids that never seemed to fit in with the in crowd.  Being a teenager is a hard thing.  It is often frustrating, and challenging to find a place where you fit in, and then still define yourself as an individual among everyone else around you trying to do the same thing.  Lena and Ethan are great characters for demonstrating the challenges facing everyone growing up in the world.  The choice of who you want to be, and who you want to be it with.  This classic tale of the misfits being drawn together and forming a bond that is always so much more profound than the other kids around them is another subject that readers can identify with — because these growing pains are one that every person goes through at one point or another in their lives. 

The mystical portion of the book — the casters are also different from many of the stories that I have seen out there lately.  It has taken its own story of “witches” and turned it into something new and different.  Grounded in the background history of the family, and the source of the mystical powers that this unusual family seems to have, there is more here than simply a witches and warlocks invention.  The story is unique in how it has been written, and it is creative and fun to read.  The connection between Ethan and Lena, as well as the characters of Lena’s family are all fun to read about — and the story is a great good vs. evil theme.  This unique story combined with the mystical feel of the old south, and the origin of the story set back during the Civil War — and you have the makings of a wonderful read. 

For more information about this book, and its authors be sure to visit the following websites:

Kami Garcia Website

Caster Series Website

Margaret Stohl Website

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

Abe Books

Originally posted 2011-07-27 12:29:04. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

About the Book:

“Understated but powerful and particularly resonant today, When the Emperor Was Divine is a heartbreaking first novel, the story of a Japanese-American family all but destroyed by American prejudice and policies during World War II.

The story unfolds in the third person as four family members move through the different phases of their internment. Otsuka’s language is spare, and her images are intense. The mother dispenses with the remnants of the family’s life in California when they are forced out of their home. The boy recalls his father’s arrest — how he was led out of the house in a bathrobe and slippers. On a train headed for the Nevada desert, the children reflect on how their lives have changed, with their comfortable home giving way to whitewashed horse stalls, and finally to a dusty wasteland in the middle of nowhere.

Their father imprisoned in far away New Mexico, the children and their mother eke out a new existence in the “blinding white glare” of the treeless desert internment camp. Assigned to a single room in a tar-paper barracks with three iron cots, they live through brutally hot summers and bitterly cold winters as their once happy and promising lives waste away, and as they wait, patiently, for the war to end.”

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

There are some books that I find from the moment I open them, they simply resonate with me.  The characters, the plot, the setting, or a combination of all of the above come together to strike a familiar tone within me, and it makes it a joy to get into the book and see where it will go.  There are other books that no matter how hard I try — I simply cannot make that connection.  This one frustrated me on two of the three. 

The actual premise of the book is what initially drew me in.  I have some friends that actually spent some time in these Japanese Internment camps during World War II.  They have shared some of their stories, and insights into what it was like to be thrust out of their adopted country for an event that was beyond their control.  And the impact it had on their lives ever since.  So, this is a subject that having had some third party connection to — I was interested to learn more about.  So in that aspect this story provided a solid foundation.  Since one of these internment camps was located here, in Utah, it is also another reason that I found the subject fascinating.  But since I have read a couple of books about this topic — I had some comparison material — and it didn’t work for the best for that reason.

This book just didn’t seem to have much of a comparison to one of my favorite books that dealt with this same topic — for more than one reason.  For those that have read Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet — you will know what I mean.  This storyline just didn’t have quite the magic, or tone that I found in Ford’s book.  That is not to say that this is not well written — it is just that it didn’t seem to make the internal impact that the other one carried.  There was something about the storyline that was disconnected in Otsuka’s presentation.  Probably the third person voice — which had the effect of depersonalizing a very personal event.  It never really seemed to give you a sense of place or substance.  And in the end that weakness left the book lacking. 

It was also very difficult to form a connection with the characters in this book.  There was little emotional substance in their interactions, and they didn’t seem to have much depth for connecting to.  Over all I came away from the book feeling like the characters were simply going through the motions –  but no more involved in the story than I was myself.  The story was a disconnected setting that just seemed to be passing behind the characters with no real interaction between them, and the circumstances they found themselves in.  And in the end, when the characters don’t share any real bonds or ties between each other, it is hard for me, as a reader to form that bond as well.

For more information about this book, and its author be sure to visit the following websites:

Interview with the Author

Author Biography

A Book A Week Book Review

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

AbeBooks.com

Originally posted 2011-09-12 07:34:18. Republished by Blog Post Promoter