Pigeon English, by Stephen Kelman

TITLE: Pigeon English
AUTHOR: Stephen Kelman

COPYRIGHT: 2011
PAGES: 288
PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury

SETTING: Contemporary London
TYPE: Fiction
SERIES: None

Pigeon English tells the story of 11-year-old Harrison Opoku who, with his mother and sister, is newly arrived from Ghana on a rough London estate.

When a local boy is knifed to death and a police appeal for witnesses draws only silence, Harrison decides to start a murder investigation of his own.

Readers of this blog in the UK will probably have seen the controversy surrounding this year's Man Booker Prize, with some criticising the judging panel for apparently choosing "readability" over quality. Well, as far as I'm concerned, they can go hang. This year's longlist looked fantastic. I've already read 3 and have a few more in my TBR pile. All 3 I read were excellent reads, but so far, Pigeon English has been the best. It was this month's book at my book club, but I already had it out from the library.

The book's narrator is Harrison Opoku, a recent immigrant from Ghana. Harri is 11, and is living with his mum and older sister, Lydia, in a council estate in London. His father and baby sister stayed behind until his mum can make enough money to bring them as well, a shame, since Harri would much rather have baby Agnes with them than that odious Lydia.

As the book starts, one of the older boys from the estate has just been stabbed to death. Harri liked the boy: he was nice and very good at football. The police appeals for witnesses to come forward and offers a reward, but no one comes forward. And that's when Harrison has his bright idea, and with his friend Dean (who has a vast store of knowledge acquired by watching all sorts of police TV shows), they decide to investigate the murder.

Objectively, the stuff going on around Harri is pretty grim. Gangs of young boys terrorise the estate, his sister is clearly in over her head is something quite bad and his mum owes money to his auntie's boyfriend, whose baseball bat called "The Persuader" gives a clue to what he does. Interestingly, though, it's not as harrowing a book to read as this might indicate. I guess it's because seeing it all through Harri's eyes makes all the difference. He's exuberant and good tempered, curious about everthing around him. He does not quite understand the implications of everything he's seeing -I think part of it is that everything in this country is new to him, the good and the bad, so he cannot fully differentiate between what he's just never experienced before, because this is a different country, and what he hasn't experienced before because he didn't live amongst gang members. But even when Harri doesn't quite get it, we, as readers, do.

Harri's narration makes this a surprisingly funny book. This is probably also part of what makes it bearable and readable, those truly hilarious moments. I think my favourite is when Harri and Dean make a list of traits that distinguish a potential suspect for their investigation, and the last item on their list is Religious Hysteria. It doesn't even sound that funny out of context, but as you're reading, you can't help but laugh.

One of my favourite things about Pigeon English is the use of language. Harri has a very distinctive voice. It's not just the use of Ghanaian slang (hutious for scary, asweh as an interjection, kind of "I swear!" - I remember those because I looked them up the first time I saw them), but also the use of, say, "only" and "even" in ways that feel quite novel and make Harri uniquely Harri. I don't know any Ghanaians, so I obviously can't really say how authentic this sounds, but a lot of things about how Harri speaks reminded me of a Nigerian friend of mine, like the use of terms and expressions that sound a bit formal and old-fashioned, but are clearly used quite colloquially by the characters (e.g. "easing oneself" for weeing... Harri loves to go for a wee right after his mum has cleaned the toilet because he loves feeling like God as he eases himself on a cloud, as he puts it :-D)

We had a really interesting discussion at the book club, and one of the most fascinating bits was about how Kelman depicts Harri as a quite recent immigrant. I mentioned something above already about how he seems to accept all the different things, the good and the bad, with some equanimity. He's integrated pretty quickly, both in good and bad ways, but there were quite a few other very telling details, where Kelman shows that while Harri's miming what's going on around him, he doesn't fully "get" things. One example of that that was mentioned was when he draws Adidas stripes on his cheap trainers and then is disappointed when everyone at school laughs at him. This whole issue was something I hadn't noticed as I was reading, but it made perfect sense when it was pointed out. Maybe because as a relatively recent immigrant myself (4 years last September!), I've probably had a few Harri moments myself and never even noticed.

The only bad thing about the book was the talking pigeon. Well, he doesn't really talk, but almost. See, there's this particular pigeon that Harri likes and considers his friend. He leaves food out for him, that sort of thing. And there are a few passages (not many, and not long) narrated from that pigeon's point of view. It did not work at all. I agree with the person in my book club who said it was the only thing in a wonderfully genuine book that smacked of literary pretentiousness. I can (kind of) see what Kelman was trying to do with it, but still, no. Fortunately, it's not a dominating element, and this is a book that can be enjoyed without the pigeon idiocy leaving a bad taste in the mouth, but I reckon that must have been one of the reasons it did not win the Booker. I can just see the judges discussing who should win and debating whether they could go as far as to award the prize to a book with a talking pigeon.

MY GRADE: An A-.

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At Last Comes Love, by Mary Balogh

TITLE: At Last Comes Love
AUTHOR: Mary Balogh

COPYRIGHT: 2009
PAGES: 416
PUBLISHER: Dell

SETTING: 19th century England
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: 3rd in the Huxtable quintet

Step into a world of scandal, intrigue, and enthralling passion as New York Times bestselling author Mary Balogh sweeps us into the lives of an extraordinary family: the Huxtables. Margaret, the eldest, embarks on the most risqué adventure of her life and agrees to marry the most notorious man in London.…

Only desperation could bring Duncan Pennethorne, the infamous Earl of Sheringford, back home after the spectacular scandal that had shocked even the jaded ton. Forced to wed in fifteen days or be cut off without a penny, Duncan chooses the one woman in London in frantic need of a husband. A lie to an old flame forces Margaret Huxtable to accept the irresistible stranger’s offer. But once she discovers who he really is, it’s too late—she’s already betrothed to the wickedly sensual rakehell. Quickly she issues an ultimatum: If Duncan wants her, he must woo her. And as passion slowly ignites, two people marrying for all the wrong reasons are discovering the joys of seduction—and awaiting the exquisite pleasure of what comes after…

Scandalous is a favourite word of romance novel marketers, often even inserted in titles of books where there is no scandal to be seen. But to call Duncan Pennethorne scandalous is no exaggeration. He earned that description 5 years earlier, when he dumped his fiancee right before the wedding and ran off to the continent with her sister-in-law (and no, this wasn't even a widowed sister-in-law, she was very much married).

Just returned to England, Duncan is now the Earl of Sheringford and he's got that very typical romance novel dilemma: his grandfather is threatening to cut him off completely unless he gets married to someone respectable, and he's only got a matter of days to find such a bride.

Margaret is the eldest of the Huxtables. The family grew up in genteel poverty until her brother, Stephen, turned out to be the heir to a title (see my review of First Comes Marriage for more detail). With their parents dead, the responsibility for bringing up her siblings fell mostly on Margaret, and so when her fiancé went off to war and insisted they get married beforehand, she felt she had to refuse and stay with her family. The fiancé insisted he'd wait for her, blah, blah, blah, but ended up marrying someone else before his return.

Years later, Margaret is pretty much an old maid, and when her former fiancé shows up in society, her pride doesn't allow her to admit she's alone. So she invents a secret fiancé... not as stupid as it sounds, since there's this nice but very staid man who's proposed a few times, and Margaret just thinks to herself that she'll accept next time he does. However, her plans go belly-up when the guy comes to her with the news that he's fallen madly in love and proposed to someone else.

Can you guess what happens next? Man in urgent need of a wife, woman in urgent need of a secret fiancé... yep, marriage of convenience. After a chance encounter, Duncan proposes and Margaret accepts, and the engagement is announced, all before she realises just how scandalous Duncan's past is.

At Last Comes Love provides exactly what a marriage-of-convenience story should: the wonder of two strangers forced to spend time with each other and realising that they truly like the person they've almost accidentally ended up with, and that a relationship which promised contentment at best, might actually deliver love.

Margaret had come across in the previous 2 books as a the good and self-sacrificing type, possibly a bit boring. But there were indications even then that there was a real person underneath, one with real feelings, and human enough that, though she didn't regret having made the decisions she did, she somewhat resented not having been able to choose her own happiness. And in a way, Duncan is in a very similar situation. As you might have imagined, there's a lot more to the big scandal in his past than meets the eye, and he and Margaret have a surprising amount in common. I loved seeing them look beyond appearances and discover this, and I also loved seeing them finally get the happiness they deserve.

MY GRADE: A B+.

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Compromised, by Kate Noble

TITLE: Compromised
AUTHOR: Kate Noble

COPYRIGHT: 2008
PAGES: 368
PUBLISHER: Berkley

SETTING: 19th century England
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: None

Miss Gail Alton was not having a good day. Or a good year. First, she's strong-armed into attending the Season as a foil to her beautiful sister Evangeline. Then, while riding her mare in the park, she gets toppled by a stuffy, self-important, too-handsome-by-half "gentleman" who has the audacity to blame her for their fall into the chilly lake! Little does Gail know that the very same man will soon be found in a compromising position with her sister...

Forced into asking for Evangeline's hand in marriage, Maximillian, Viscount Fontaine, can't take his mind off the irksome girl who threw him from his horse and who can match wits with him at every turn. He's determined to follow through with his best intentions, yet he can't deny that Gail makes him want to cast propriety aside-and whisk away the sister of his soon-to-be bride...

Kate Noble has been billed as a new Julia Quinn, and say what you will about wallpaper historicals, sometimes JQ just hits the spot for me. I was hoping for charming and funny, including a sweet romance which, nonetheless, had plenty of emotion. But although I do see where the comparison is coming from, Compromised felt a bit amateurish to me and didn't completely satisfy.

The plot is reminiscent of Quinn's wonderful The Viscount Who Loved Me: Max, Viscount Fontaine is newly engaged to Gail Alton's younger sister, after they were accidentally caught in compromising circumstances. Max doesn't mind, as he developed a crush on little sister Evangeline as soon as he met her.

Max isn't pleased to discover that he'd already ran into Evangeline's older sister, in quite an embarrassing encounter. Max and Gail's relationship is adversarial, to say the least, but as Max gets to know Evangeline better and realises they really don't have much in common, he's also realising that not only does he like Gail, he's got a sneaking suspicion that she would suit him much better than Evangeline...

I liked this well enough. Max and Gail are well suited to each other, and I enjoyed how they became good friends before other feelings developed. It's a difficult situation they're in, especially because Gail does love her sister and -shocker!- Evangeline is quite a lovely person as well. She might be petite and delicate and pretty, but she's a real person, who loves her sister right back, rather than a cardboard bitch it would have been easy to hate.

All good, but just... not great. I can´t really pinpoint what didn't work, simply that it all felt a bit meh. Gail and Max, especially. I found it hard to get too excited about them. They're fine, but that's it. Fine, but nothing special.

MY GRADE: A B-.

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Feed, by Mira Grant

TITLE: Feed
AUTHOR: Mira Grant

COPYRIGHT:2010
PAGES: 574
PUBLISHER: Orbit

SETTING: 2040s US
TYPE: Fiction - Thriller/Horror
SERIES: Book 1 in the Newsflesh Trilogy

EVERYONE HAS SOMEONE ON THE WALL

Shaun and Georgia are orphans of the Rising, the cataclysmic event which left the world reeling in the aftermath of the zombie uprising. Adopted by the Masons and raised in the strange world of the post-Rising media, they've spent their lives chasing the next big story, the one that will allow them to break into the big leagues once and for all. Now, in Senator Peter Ryman's run for the Presidency of the United States, they've finally found it.

All they have to do is survive until the election.

In a world filled with the constant threat of both the living and the living dead, it will be all that Shaun and Georgia can do to keep themselves in one piece. Accompanied by the rest of their blogging team, Senator Ryman's staff, and a whole lot of caffeine, they might succeed…or they might finally answer the big question of their post-Rising world: When will you rise?

In 2014, it looked like there was nowhere to go but up. Scientists had managed to cure the common cold and cancer. But on that year, the viruses engineered to do that combined, and the results were catastrophic. For people infected with the combined virus (and this quickly came to include everyone on the planet), death triggered a process called amplification. The result: the dead person would "rise", becoming a mindless being bent on feeding on other humans and on spreading the now live version of the virus rampant through their body. Yep, zombies.

It is now some 25 years after the Rising and society exists in an uneasy balance. Zombies haven't been defeated so much as contained (it's not even theoretically possible to defeat this particular threat, when any unattended death will end up in the deceased turning zombie in a matter of minutes).

Georgia Mason and her brother Shaun have grown up in this world, having been born after the Rising. They are bloggers, in a world where the traditional media's failure to properly report the Rising, causing much unnecessary death, has lost it a great measure of trust. News blogging has grown to fill the void. It's a competitive, very structured world, where bloggers are divided into objective, factual Newsies, devoted to the truth; thrill-seeking Irwins, focused on the action and danger of reporting in what's effectively a war-zone; and Fictionals, who concentrate on writing fiction reflecting the world they live in. Ratings are everything, with blogs competing against each other for visitors and attention.

As the book starts, George, a Newsie, and Shaun, an Irwin, together with the Fictional in their team, Buffy Messonier, are selected to cover the campaign of a presidential hopeful, Peter Ryman. Ryman is the first presidential candidate to have grown up after the Rising, so he'll the first to accept a blogging team embedded in his campaign, allowing them access that has previously only been granted to traditional media outlets.

George and her team start out determined to be objective and detached, but at the same time, they soon come to like Ryman and believe he's the real deal (which doesn't compromise their determination to be truthful and not betray their readers -they all take this very seriously). But as the campaign advances and Ryman's candidacy looks more and more possible, tragic "accidents" start happening around it, and it's soon clear that someone is willing to stop at nothing to derail the campaign.

Now, the plot here is serviceable enough, a conspiracy story with a denouement that did not particularly surprise me, but which was quite readable and entertaining, nonetheless. Similarly, the characters were interesting and I liked their interactions (even if I found George and Shaun's closeness a bit strange), but they weren't the most amazing characters I've ever read.

The reason to read this is for the fantastic, amazing and mindblowing world-building. Can great world-building be enough to save a book that's otherwise bad? Probably not. But it can certainly elevate one that's otherwise average into excellence, and that's exactly what happened here.

What's great about it is how detailed it is, how Grant has really clearly thought hard about things. She's not only come up with a really coherent explanation for how the zombies originated and how they behave, she has also gone all the way in understanding how society might change due to their presence. This is not set in a world where people are and interact just like today, only with better technology, since it's the future. No, society has changed massively. For instance, there's the constant and neverending care and vigilance that need to be sustained in order to prevent an outbreak. There's the fact that this is a world where a gathering of a large number of people, all in the same physica space, is seen by many as an accident waiting to happen. There's the powers that government agencies have taken on, arguing that they're needed to keep the country safe.

It wasn't a surprise that I loved the deep level of world-building, but I was actually amazed that the techniques Grant used to explain to us what this world was like didn't annoy me. The world-building was just not seamlessly integrated, like, say, Meljean Brook's in the Iron Seas books, where you only find out thinks organically. You get quite a few infodump-type sections here. There are some sections which are excerpts from our characters' blogs which were fine, but the main narration, from George's point of view, read as if she was explaining her world to people just like us, from before the Rising. These sections were very good infodumps, chock-full of fascinating stuff and written beautifully, in George's very individual voice, but I still should have found that a bit annoying. I just... didn't. I loved it all.

Even if you're not particularly interested in zombies, this is one to read.

MY GRADE: B+

PS: How cool is it that the zombies are the George Romero type, so much so that he has become a national hero? Yep, that's who Georgia (and half the kids in her generation) was named after! And I guess we've got Shaun of the Dead, as well.

PS - 2: The cover is fantastic, too. The RSS feed symbol, but written in blood combines horror and blogging perfectly, and so does the title.

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Attachments, by Rainbow Rowell

TITLE: Attachments
AUTHOR: Rainbow Rowell

COPYRIGHT: 2011
PAGES: 336
PUBLISHER: Orion

SETTING: 1999 US
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: No

It's 1999 and for the staff of one newspaper office, the internet is still a novelty. By day, two young women, Beth and Jennifer, spend their hours emailing each other, discussing in hilarious detail every aspect of their lives, from love troubles to family dramas. And by night, Lincoln, a shy, lonely IT guy spends his hours reading every exchange.

At first their emails offer a welcome diversion, but as Lincoln unwittingly becomes drawn into their lives, the more he reads, the more he finds himself falling for one of them. By the time Lincoln realizes just how head-over-heels he really is, it's way too late to introduce himself. What would he say to her? 'Hi, I'm the guy who reads your e-mail - and also, I think I love you'. After a series of close encounters, Lincoln decides it's time to muster the courage to follow his heart . . . and find out whether there really is such a thing as love before first-sight.

1999. Most companies are still leery of allowing their employees access to that scary world, the internet and email. The publishers of the Courier, a small-town Nebraska paper, are especially terrified of their own employees, and so they hire Lincoln to take care of IT security.

Lincoln thought his job would involve such exciting stuff as building firewalls and fighting off hackers, but it turns out to be basically sitting round until 1 AM, spending some 10 minutes a night reading emails flagged up by the system as inappropriate and sending out template warnings. The job pays well, but it's boring and Lincoln feels like a bit of a creep for reading other people's emails. Especially because he's particularly relishing reading the often-flagged email exchanges between two female employees, so much so that he hasn't actually got round to sending them a warning.

The story is told in alternating chapters. Sections narrated in the third person, but showing Lincoln's point of view, are followed by the email exchanges between Jennifer, an editor, and Beth, a movie reviewer. They gossip, they whine and they share quite a lot about their lives, including the fact that Beth, in spite of her 8-year relationship with her emotionally unavailable musician boyfriend, Chris, has developed a crush on a mysterious Cute Guy she's seen round the office. A Cute Guy who, all the details indicate, is none other than Lincoln himself, who himself has been crushing on the sweet, funny woman Beth has proved to be in her own emails.

Attachments was a fun, charming and sweet romance, one I just couldn't stop reading. The chapters are pretty short, which unfortunately meant that I naively kept telling myself I'd read only one more, resulting in a couple of unexpectedly late nights.

Lincoln is a character whose description practically screams "loser". He's 28 and has moved back with his mom (who makes his dinner every day -and by the way, every single one of those dishes sounded amazing!). He's also still almost in mourning for his one significant relationship, which was with his high-school girlfriend (she broke up with him in the first year of uni). His only social interactions when the book starts are with his fellow dungeons and dragons-playing friends.

But for all this, Rowell manages to create a character who's not a loser at all. Instead, Lincoln comes across as shy, sweet and quite endearing. He's a genuinely good guy, but one who hasn't been able to resist the temptation to do something quite dodgy, and now he's in a bit of an untenable situation. He likes Beth, he knows she likes him, but how could it work out, when he's been reading her private emails? If they do get together and he confesses, she will break up with him, but if he doesn't, then they'll always have that secret between them.

Attachments is actually right on the line between romance and chick lit, only with the hero in the place of the heroine, having to be the one who grows up and finds his way. I'd call it lad lit, but the lad lit I've read has a completely different feel to it, this is definitely chick lit! We do get to know Beth quite well as well, but since it's only through her emails, there's a bit more of a distance there.

The emails, by the way, were hilarious. I have to say, most of the time they felt more like instant messages than email, but I had no trouble letting that go. You really get a feeling for who these women are, and I loved the portrayal of female friendship.

I also loved the setting. The book's written as a historical, albeit one that's set only 12 years ago, in an era I remember well, when I was just getting into the working world myself. It was funny how this felt very different from reading a contemporary actually written in 1999. I guess it's the way Rowell chooses to pinpoint the things that really bring that time back to us now (e.g. the Y2K hysteria), when a contemporary author has no idea which things will stay in people's memories (and she's probably had advice from critique partners to not include anything that will date the book -stupid advice!!). I did find the lack of worries about the "death of newspapers" a bit poignant -I guess I kind of felt about this as I would feel about a romance novel set in 1911, knowing the war is coming, and soon.

Attachments has had fantastic word of mouth (that's what made me pick it up), and this lovely book deserves all that buzz. It's landed Rowell on my autobuy list.

MY GRADE: A very strong B+.

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A Visit From The Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan

TITLE: A Visit From The Goon Squad
AUTHOR: Jennifer Egan

COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 352
PUBLISHER: Corsair

SETTING: Contemporary, variety of locations
TYPE: Fiction
SERIES: None

Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs. With music pulsing on every page, A Visit from the Goon Squad is a startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption.

Yet another book read for my book club, and yet another one that I loved, and would never have picked up otherwise. Yay for book clubs!

A Visit From The Goon Squad seems to be more a collection of related stories than a novel. I can't decide which it is, actually, as these stories are not independent, and there's an overall theme that emerges as we move back and forth in time, and all over the world, picking up the stories of characters whom we'd met in previous chapters, sometimes in the centre of things, more often just on the edge of vision.

This was a structure that quite divided my book club. Some people hated it. They felt cheated when they finished a chapter and knew that they wouldn't find out more about that character, other than by way of them being part of the supporting cast in another character's story. Me, I never felt cheated. Every single chapter, I felt Egan closed it at the perfect point, a point where I was still interested in the character, but where I'd had enough to make the story perfectly satisfying.

It's not just the structure that's different and interesting, Egan is also quite innovative with her narrative choices. There are plenty of traditionally narrated chapters (albeit each with their own very individual voices), but there are also some quite wild ones, such as one that is basically a powerpoint presentation. The latter actually turned out to be one of my favourites, doubtful as I was before I started it. It tells a proper story, complete with feelings and great characterisation. Just that chapter is worth the price of the book.

Other favourites included the chapter about the PR agent who has lately almost accidentally become specialised in rehabilitating brutal dictators (loved the fuzzy hat detail), the final, futuristic episode which felt eerily possible, or the celebrity interview with jaw-dropping footnotes.

I should also say, the reason why I would probably never have picked this up on my own is that all I'd read about it indicated that this was a book where the music business was a big part of the plot. I have absolutely no interest in the music business, and just as little patience for the self-indulgent characters that seem to populate it. But while several of the characters are involved, centrally or peripherally, in that business, this is not what the book is about, and all the characters are interesting enough that I wanted to read about them. I especially appreciated the several moments of complete truth that we got, the sort of writing that forces you to acknowledge feelings that are not particularly pretty, but which really are there. For instance, I'm thinking of Bennie's collection of shameful moments that he can't help thinking about again, and can't keep picking at, like a scab.

MY GRADE: B+

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Naked Once More, by Elizabeth Peters

TITLE: Naked Once More
AUTHOR: Elizabeth Peters

COPYRIGHT: 1989
PAGES: 360
PUBLISHER: Warner

SETTING: 1980s US
TYPE: Mystery
SERIES: 4th in the Jacqueline Kirby series

She may be a bestselling author, but ex-librarian Jacqueline Kirby's views on the publishing biz aren't fit to print. In fact, she's thinking of trading celebrity for serenity and a house far away from fiendish editors and demented fans when her agent whispers the only words that could ever make her stay: Naked in the Ice.

Seven years ago, this blockbuster skyrocketed Kathleen Darcy to instant fame. Now the author's heirs and looking for a writer to pen the sequel. It's an opportunity no novelist in her right mind would pass up, and there's no doubting Jacqueline's sanity...until she starts digging through the missing woman's papersand her past. Until she gets mixed up with Kathleen enigmatic lover. Until a series of nasty accidents convince her much too late that someone wants to bring Jacqueline's storyand her lifeto a premature end.

Reread of an old favourite, although, to be fair, pretty much all of Elizabeth Peters / Barbara Michaels' books are old faves of mine. This one is the last book in the Jacqueline Kirby series, featuring the adventures of the fantastically self-assured former librarian.

Since the last book, which took place in a romance novel convention (and which shouldn't be read by romance readers unless they can take a bit of fun being poked at the genre, especially its 1980s excesses -remember the author photos where they dressed up as the book's heroine?), Jacqueline has become a successful author herself. But fun as writing her own characters may be, when the possibility of writing a sequel of Naked in the Ice comes up, Jaqueline jumps at it.

Naked in the Ice was the blockbuster to end all blockbusters, a Clan of the Cave Bear-type epic historical romance. It brought its author, Katherine Darcy, fame and fortune. But not long after it came out, Katherine mysteriously disappeared. Her car was found abandoned, what looked like a suicide note left behind, and Katherine's body never turned up. Seven years have passed since then, and now that the courts have finally declared her dead, her family is in quite an unseemly rush to cash in and get someone to write a sequel.

The competition for the chance to do so is fierce (literally: the other authors in the running are willing to go to some bizarre lengths to get the prize), but Jacqueline manages to get selected, and moves to the small town that was Katherine's home to be close to Katherine's archives while she writes. But Jacqueline is quite the amateur detective, and she was already interested in the mystery of Katherine's disappearance even before she finds some tantalising clues in her letters, pointing at someone wanting her dead...

This is vintage Elizabeth Peters. There's the fun plot, the humour that shines through every sentence and the varied and extremely entertaining secondary characters. I enjoyed all of it. The plot might be a little far-fetched, but it's intriguing, and makes for interesting twists and turns, with some good red herrings, and a fun ending, which is a bit of an homage to Agatha Christie. Peters' writing is fantastic, especially when she's describing those secondary characters. She's a bit brutal sometimes, when she's skwering someone particularly unlikeable, but that's because we're seeing them from Jacqueline's point of view, and she's one unsentimental woman.

This was particularly enjoyable because Jacqueline is a bit of a mysterious character throughout most of the series. The first two books, at least, are quite unusual in that while she's very much the protagonist, we never see her point of view. Both books are narrated by other characters, who are all a bit in awe of the beautiful, clever and very prickly Jaqueline. I'm not quite sure about Die For Love, because I haven't reread it in a while, but in Naked Once More we finally get into Jacqueline's head. And it's quite good, because she's much more human that way. We don't see much of her vulnerabilities in the first two books, but we do see here that she has a few of them. But of course, she doesn't change personality just because of this. She's still unsentimental and doesn't suffer fools gladly, which is something I love about her.

MY GRADE: A B+

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Silk Is for Seduction, by Loretta Chase

TITLE: Silk Is for Seduction
AUTHOR: Loretta Chase

COPYRIGHT: 2011
PAGES: 384
PUBLISHER: Avon

SETTING: 19th century Paris and England
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: First in the Dressmakers series

From the Design Book of Marcelline Noirot: The allure of the perfect gown should be twofold: ladies would die to wear it . . . and gentlemen would kill to remove it!

 Brilliant and ambitious dressmaker Marcelline Noirot is London's rising star. And who better to benefit from her talent than the worst-dressed lady in the ton, the Duke of Clevedon's intended bride? Winning the future duchess's patronage means prestige and fortune for Marcelline and her sisters. To get to the lady, though, Marcelline must win over Clevedon, whose standards are as high as his morals are . . . not. 

The prize seems well worth the risk—but this time Marcelline's met her match. Clevedon can design a seduction as irresistible as her dresses; and what begins as a flicker of desire between two of the most passionately stubborn charmers in London soon ignites into a delicious inferno . . . and a blazing scandal.

And now both their futures hang by an exquisite thread of silk...

Marcelline Noirot and her two sisters run the absolute best dressmakers in London. Unfortunately, they're having a little bit of trouble becoming established, since the ladies of the ton are too conservative and risk-averse to go somewhere other than where everyone else is going. Although there are a few ladies who have been persuaded to patronise Maison Noirot, none of them are high-born enough to convince the rest to follow them.

But the Noirots have a plan. The rumour about town is that the Duke of Clevendon has finally been persuaded to come back from the continent and propose to Lady Clara, the young woman he's been informally promised to for years. And duke with deep pockets + beautiful, high-born bride, well-known for dressing dowdily = the perfect opportunity for an ambitious dressmaker.

The Noirots are too cunning for directness, and the oblique approach they come up with involves Marcelline travelling to Paris, running into Clevendon and attracting his attention. Which, since Marcelline is a genius at being alluring and irresistible, she does. But it turns out she's captured Clevendon's attention a bit too well, and he's captured hers just as much.

This out of the way first: this clever, clever plan of theirs, which is presented as proof of how fantastically cunning the Noirots are, and how adept at getting their own way? Not as clever as Chase tells us it is. I'd describe it as pretty stupid, in fact. Whatever made them think that manouvering a duke into interacting socially with a tradesperson and acknowledging her as an attractive, sexy woman would convince him to encourage his future, virginal bride to patronise her, I don't know. Of course, it works here, but I very much doubt it would have in any version of real life.

But you know what? I didn't care. Even as I told myself that, I was so completely charmed by this book and captivated by the romance that I loved every second of it. It's a frothy confection of a story, but one that has quite a bit of angst and heart to it, as well.

Marcelline is a total goddess, and I loved her to pieces. She's confident and comfortable in herself, and knows perfectly well what she can expect from Clevendon and what she can't. And yet, there's something about him that makes her do things she knows perfectly well she shouldn't do. Clevendon might have a nobleman's arrogance and the power to ignore social consequences, but Marcelline is aware of the consequences his actions might have. She doesn't completely forget about her purposes in meeting Clevendon in the first place just because she's attracted to him, and Chase successfully establishes why that should be, why Maison Noirot means so much to the sisters.

Clevendon is, in many ways, a much more thoughtless character than Marcelline, but as I mentioned above, this perfectly reflects who he is. He's never had to think about what Marcelline must obsessively consider. This means that it's a thin line he walks between crazy in love with Marcelline and selfishly going after what he wants, with no thought to what this might mean to this woman he's so captivated by.

Readers should know before going in that for much of the book, Clevendon still intends to marry Lady Clara, even as he tirelessly pursues Marcelline. I'm pretty uptight about infidelity in my romances, but I wasn't particularly bothered by this. I saw it more as a situation where someone had been brought up with the idea that "this is what one does", and has never actually stopped to think that he doesn't actually have to do it.

The first sections of the story take place in Paris, where we have an intense focus on Clevendon and Marcelline. The focus widens when they return to London, but any loss of intensity in the relationship is more than compensated by the fantastic secondary characters. I especially appreciated that Lady Clara was no one-note horrible character, whom Clevendon could dump without a second thought. She was real and she was lovely, it was just that those two wouldn't suit. I really would love to see more of her in future books. 

My favourite of the secondary characters, however, was Lucie, Marcelline's young daughter. Yep, a child character. I loved her much in the way I love JAK's dust-bunnies in her Jayne Castle books unreservedly, but feeling somewhat embarrassed about it. But seriously, how could I not love a little girl who solemnly announces she has changed her name to Errol, and then cooly proceeds to charm the adults around her? And also, Princess Errol of Albania, indeed!

MY GRADE: A B+.

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I'll Catch You, by Farrah Rochon

TITLE: I'll Catch You
AUTHOR: Farrah Rochon

COPYRIGHT: 2011
PAGES: 219
PUBLISHER: Kimani Romance

SETTING: Contemporary US
TYPE: Category romance
SERIES: 2nd in the New York Sabers series (follows Huddle With Me Tonight)

HE'S THROUGH PLAYING THE FIELD...OR IS HE?

Cedric Reeves has just been sidelined, and the bad-boy pro footballer suddenly finds himself without an agent or a prayer of getting back in the game. What he needs is someone pulling for him...someone like gorgeous go-getter Payton Mosely.

A media-hounded celebrity like Cedric is just what the ambitious up-and-comer Payton needs to jump-start her career. That's why she's waging a no-holds-barred campaign to land the Saber running back as her first client. But how's the NFL sports agent supposed to keep things strictly professional when Cedric pursues her with a passion no sane woman can resists? Could this sexy bad boy be good for her after all?

When Payton Mosely beloved father died, she realised she needed to change her life. Her father was a dedicated high school football coach, so she left her job as an extremely successful contract lawyer and decided she's become a sports agent. It's hard to break into that boys' club when you're a woman, but Payton has a plan.

Cedric Reeves, the New York Sabers' running back has been let loose by his agent after one too many scandalous stories and being dropped by his big sponsor. There's even talk that the Sabers might be reluctant to renew his contract at the end of the season. He's the perfect first client for Payton: the big agents are reluctant to take on such a troublemaker and have been telling him no, so he should be open to her overtures, and at the same time, if she manages to turn around such a troubled career, Payton knows she'll have more than enough interest from other clients.

Cedric is dismissive of Payton at first, but when she manages to get a few minutes of his time and wows him with her knowledge of the game and her determination, his attitude changes fast. But as they work together and the fantastic results start coming in fast, his attraction to her grows just as fast as his admiration for her skills as a negotiator.

This was a fun, fast read. I really loved the characters. Payton was fantastic. She might be right at the beginning of her career as a sports agent, but she knows exactly what she's doing. She's soon got Cedric's image sorted out (that felt a bit too easy, by the way. It's like: "ok, these people are always around when you get into trouble" "But these are my friends from back in the day, I don't want to sell out!" "They're parasites, they're not good for you, it's not selling out, it's moving on" "Ok" And problem sorted! It wasn't a huge issue for me, and I accepted it because it's a short book and there's plenty of other stuff to work through, but it wasn't as believable as the rest). Anyway, Peyton has also got the experience negotiating tough deals from her previous job and knows the game inside out, so she's extremely competent. And I loved that Cedric soon realises that. He's utterly and completely in awe of how good she is.

He's also extremely appreciative. Cedric might be a professional football player, but he's not one of the top stars. To his previous agent, with whom he'd been since he (illegally) paid Cedric a stipend while he was in University, he was just one of many clients. The man did as little for him as he could get away with, especially when Cedric started to be a bit of a troublemaker. Cedric should have found new representation long before the man dropped him, but to be honest, he isn't the brightest person when it comes to business (when he decides to sign with Payton, he basically gives her a blank check. He decides he trusts her, so he signs her contract without reading it and then keeps doing that with every deal she gets him. I guess it was the right decision, since Payton can be trusted, but it sounds like he was just as trusting with his previous agent...). Anyway, having Payton squarely in his corner, working hard to get his really excellent deals, blows Cedric mind. It also makes the decision of whether to go after her as a woman even harder. Their feelings for each other develop quite quickly, soon he needs her and is half in love with her, but he also needs her just as much as his agent, and he doesn't want to screw that up. In fact, neither of them do. But working together so intensely gives them a bit too many opportunities to give in to temptation.

I guess many of you reading this will want to know how well Rochon does the football bits of the book, whether she knows her stuff. The answer, I'm afraid, is I don't know. If this was proper football (sorry, kidding, kidding, couldn't resist!!), I could tell you, but I know practically nothing about American football. However, if I had to put money on it, my $$ would be on Rochon knowing what she's talking about. I felt there was a genuine love of the game showing in her writing, so I'd be surprised if she's making it up. I'd love to hear what people think, though!

MY GRADE: A B+.

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The Lantern, by Deborah Lawrenson

TITLE: The Lantern
AUTHOR: Deborah Lawrenson

COPYRIGHT: 2011
PAGES: 344
PUBLISHER: Orion

SETTING: Contemporary Southern France
TYPE: Gothic romance
SERIES: None

When Eve falls for the secretive, charming Dom, their whirlwind relationship leads them to purchase Les Genevriers, an abandoned house in a rural hamlet in the south of France. As the beautiful Provence summer turns to autumn, Eve finds it impossible to ignore the mysteries that haunt both her lover and the run-down old house, in particular the mysterious disappearance of his beautiful first wife, Rachel.

Whilst Eve tries to untangle the secrets surrounding Rachel's last recorded days, Les Genevriers itself seems to come alive. As strange events begin to occur with frightening regularity, Eve's voice becomes intertwined with that of Benedicte Lincel, a girl who lived in the house decades before. As the tangled skeins of the house's history begin to unravel, the tension grows between Dom and Eve. In a page-turning race, Eve must fight to discover the fates of both Benedicte and Rachel, before Les Genevriers' dark history has a chance to repeat itself.

Lazy day again, and the description above is pretty good, so I'm not going to bother with my own (this review is long enough, anyway!). Go ahead and read it, I'll wait.

Done? Well, if you read even that short summary, you problably don't need me to tell you that The Lantern owes much to Rebecca ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_(novel) ). There's a whirlwind relationship with a man the heroine doesn't know all that much about before they marry (in this case, begin living together). There's the very distinctive house in an area unfamiliar to the heroine, where she doesn't have any sort of support network. There's the big mystery involving the first wife, something that's clearly still having an effect on the man. And once you start reading, the similarities keep piling up. We've got a heroine whose real name we never find out (Eve is just a nickname Dom has come up with). The action even starts with Eve and Dom in some sort of exile, with Eve making dire remarks about knowing that your man has done a bad, bad thing, and then goes back and tells the story that brought them there.

Similarities or not, this was not a problem for me. The author freely acknowledges the inspiration, and then makes the story completely her own, taking it in a completely different direction. It's an homage, rather than a rewriting. There's the story of the previous residents of the house, but not only that, the relationship between Eve and Dom is quite different. Plus, it helps that there is no Mrs. Danvers, I guess!

So all that said, how did the story work? The answer is that I kind of liked it, on the whole, but there's a big central issue that was very close to making the book a complete failure. It's the fact that the conflict in Eve and Dom's relationship is based on non-communication. You see, Dom refuses to say anything at all about his former wife, Rachel, and asks Eve not to ask him any questions about her. Eve accepts this, grudgingly, but then can't resist digging around for answers.

My main issue was that the whole thing went too far beyond what would be reasonable without any woman insisting that Dom explained himself. We therefore had a situation where I was thinking badly of both characters:

With Dom, I was thinking that I could imagine no possible secret that excused being so damned mysterious, especially when he had to be aware that the woman he supposedly loved felt the need to know. I mean, there's this scene when he just starts crying and then refuses to say why. After something like that, there are two options: a) your girlfriend doesn't give a shit about you, and therefore doesn't feel the need to know what's wrong, or b) your girlfriend loves you, and is therefore being torn apart by not understanding what's happening to you. Given that, Dom's insistence on keeping quiet seems cruel, because he knows a) is not the case. To be fair, when we finally find out what Dom's big secret was, it is properly traumatic, and something big enough that it seems credible it would have screwed up with Dom in a major way. Enough to justify his actions during the book? There was much disagreement about that during the book club discussion.

As for Eve, her behaviour also bothered me. She basically takes the worst possible option. She could have insisted Dom tell her the truth, especially when it became clear it was something that still had a huge effect on him. She could have agreed to trust him and not ask questions, as he requested, even if it hurt her to do so. What she does, instead, is to tell Dom she trusts him, but at the same time go behind his back and research his former wife. I can understand perfectly well her need to know, but that's the worst of both worlds.

Lawrenson takes this to the point where she was walking the line between me continuing reading and throwing the book against the wall. It was frustrating, but for me, Lawrenson didn't quite cross the line, and the rest of what I liked about the book just about compensated for it. Your mileage may vary, however.

Yet another problem was that, while I love books with storylines happening in the present day and in the past, the successful ones tend to be the ones where whatever happened in the past mirrors and illuminates in some way the current storyline. I didn't feel that really happened in The Lantern. Eve and Dom's story is interspersed with the story of Benedicte, an old lady who used to live in the same house, who tells the story of her family and their lives. There's some fascinating stuff there. Her sister, Marthe, is blind, and overcomes incredible odds to become one of the most celebrated perfumieres in the world. There's also a horrible, evil brother, Pierre, and their stories are suitably dramatic. I kind of wished as I was reading that we were focusing on Marthe, rather than the more boring Benedicte, but in all, it was all fascinating.

Problem was, the story of Benedicte and her family felt very disconnected to our narrator's. The only element they seemed to have in common was the fact that Eve and Dom are living in what used to be Benedicte's house. Plus, Eve never seems all that interesting in finding out what happened back then -she never even really cottons on that something interesting might have happened! Yes, she starts doing some research, but that feels very throwaway... oh, this was the childhood home of someone famous, I'll read up a bit on her". It didn't even feel like she was interested enough to write the book about it that she was supposed to be writing.

Looks like I'm in a bit of a bitchy day today. Paragraphs and paragraphs describing what was wrong with the book, but I actually did enjoy it. I was quite absorbed by the story and the characters. I cared about them and wanted to know what was going on. I love modern gothics, and that's what I got here, with the hint of hauntings going on. Benedicte is haunted by the people in her past, and by the thought that she could, should have prevented some of the tragedies that happened, while Eve is haunted by Dom's previous wife, and even possibly by the house's former inhabitants. It's always just a hint, never a proper plot point, but I liked it.

But the best thing about it was the writing, and how Lawrenson used it to create the setting and mood of the story. The descriptions were lyrical and quite beautiful, using all five senses. It's a fantastic setting, and not only could could I picture it perfectly, I could smell it. This was quite appropriate in a book where perfume is quite a large part of the story. There were a few times when the description slowed down the narrative a bit, but it was worth it for the beautiful images it created.

To finish, I want to mention what, in this book where hauntings have a prominent place, ended up haunting me. It might be a bit spoilerish, so I'll white it out.[[[Days after finishing this, I can't forget the young girl who comes with Marthe to Les Genevieres and therefore shares Marthe's tragic end. I hated that it felt like she was completely disregarded. I found her fate the most tragic of all, for some reason. I couldn't stop thinking about this young girl, partially sighted at a time when it would have been even more of a struggle than it is today, who's managed to get to a point where the possibility of a career seems to open up before her. How proud and happy she must have been about it! And then, when doing something that must have seemed to her just completely unremarkable and not at all dangerous, accompanying her mentor to her childhood home, she's suddenly raped and killed. And for the author narrating the story, she merits nothing more than a passing reference. Maybe I'm being unfair, and the reaction I had was exactly what the author was after, but it really didn't feel that way.]]]

MY GRADE: A B-.

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In Too Deep, by Jayne Ann Krentz

TITLE: In Too Deep
AUTHOR: Jayne Ann Krentz

COPYRIGHT: 2011
PAGES: 352
PUBLISHER: Putnam

SETTING: Contemporary US
TYPE: Paranormal romance
SERIES: Book 1 of the Looking Glass Trilogy, but also part of the Arcane Society series.

Scargill Cove is the perfect place for Fallon Jones, confirmed recluse and investigator of the paranormal. It's a hot spot, a convergence point for unusually strong currents of energy, which might explain why the town attracts misfits and drifters like moths to a flame. Now someone else has been drawn to the Cove-Isabella Valdez, on the run from some very dangerous men.

When she starts work as Fallon's assistant, Isabella impresses him by organizing his pathologically chaotic office-and doesn't bat an eye at the psychic aspect of his job. She's a kindred spirit, a sanctuary from a world that considers his talents a form of madness. But after a routine case unearths an antique clock infused with dark energy, Fallon and Isabella are dragged into the secret history of Scargill Cove and forced to fight for their lives, as they unravel a cutthroat conspiracy with roots in the Jones family business . . . and Isabella's family tree.

I kind of suspect that with Fallon Jones, JAK was trying to pull a Rothgar (am I showing my age here?). You know, that character who keeps showing up in the previous books in the series and whose story readers are desperate to read. She didn't quite succeed. I mean, I was slightly intrigued by him, and when I saw that his book was coming out went "Oh, that's cool", but that's about it. And it's a good thing I didn't get too excited, because this wasn't such a great book.

Fallon Jones is the eccentric head of Jones & Jones, the Arcane Society's detective agency. Fallon's talent is chaos theory, which, in JAK's world, makes him excellent at discerning the connections between seemingly unrelated events (I'm no expert in chaos theory, but the small bit of work I've done on complex systems makes me suspect this is not quite right). This talent of his makes people think he's paranoid and a conspiracy theory nut, but you know how it goes, right? It's not paranoia if someone's really out to get you, and by extension, you're not a conspiracy theory nut if there really is a conspiracy. And Fallon's obsession, the shadowy criminal organisation called Nightshade, really exists and really is out to get, not just him, but the whole Arcane Society.

Fallon has moved J&J out to Scargill Cove, a small town on the coast of California, and almost without noticing, he has acquired a partner, Isabella Valdez. Isabella has her own talents and her own secrets, some of which have made her a target for some baddies. She's on the run, but when she gets to Scargill Cove she feels she can stop for a while. She applies for the post of Fallon's assistant, but sorting out his office takes no time at all, and becoming a fellow investigator seems like the natural next step, whether Fallon is enthusiastic about the idea or not.

The romance had really excellent bones. These two are perfect for each other. Isabella is, if anything, even better than Fallon at conspiracy theory. She sees the world as he sees it, and with her, he need not feel like a nut, because it all makes perfect sense when they talk. Being with Isabella also calms Fallon down, helps him think more clearly, and she needs him just as much.

That said, the actual romance felt a bit meh, which was a bit strange, considerig that they are so well-suited to each other. I didn't really perceive that much chemistry between them, I guess, and then there's the issue that the plot keeps getting in the way. It's typical of the direction JAK's been taking lately, with loads of stuff about the Arcane Society and Nightshade's machinations, and I'm BORED of all that. It's even more frustrating because there's some interesting stuff here, as well. The secret that the town's entire population is keeping, for instance, is really cool. Or at least, it would have been if it hadn't been to do with Nightshade and the Arcane Society.

Can we have something new, please?

MY GRADE: A C+. And this is a grade that is more about my boredom with the repetition than about the intrinsic quality of the book.

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The Grim Reaper, Conspiracies and Jellyfish

TITLE: First Grave On The Right
AUTHOR: Darynda Jones

Our heroine, Charley Davidson, is the Grim Reaper. Yes, really. Her job is to help people cross over to the other side. Most manage it fine, but some hang around and she needs to send them on their way. Charley's also a PI, and both jobs go together fine: dead people tend to have some really useful info (like who killed them, even), and investigative skills come useful when she needs to find out more about the circumstances of someone's death.

In the bit I managed to get through, there are a group of lawyers who have just been killed and need Charley's help, in both her capacities. There's also a spirit that's seemingly haunting her, and it looks like it's this tragic and handsome young man she met once when they were both very young.

I actually really liked the setup and was quite intrigued by both the mystery and the emerging romance, but I just couldn't bear Charley. She's like a MaryJanice Davidson heroine on speed. Wisecracks all over the place, no matter how inappropriate the time or place. She came across as stupid, not sassy and snarky and clever, and after about a third of the book I couldn't stand her anymore.

MY GRADE: DNF.

---

TITLE: Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History
AUTHOR: David Aaronovitch

This was my book club's choice a couple of months ago. It's non fiction, and the author examines several conspiracy theories, trying to understand what it is about them that makes people believe some very dodgy things.

I expected a little bit more analysis than I got, but on the other hand, there's quite a lot of narration and debunking of conspiracy theories (some well-known ones, like the JFK assassination or the theory that 9/11 was an inside job, but also a couple of British ones which I knew nothing about), which was still interesting. And to be fair, what analysis there was was pretty good. The writing is quite snappy and readable, with a focus on entertaining the reader, rather than being scholarly and exhaustive. There is, however, a bit of psychobabble, which can get slightly tedious.

On the whole, I enjoyed it, but that might be because conspiracy theories are not my thing (well, not anymore... I remember being completely, 100% convinced by the JFK movie as a teen!). I've worked for the government for the last 10 years (two different governments, in fact), and the idea that we would be able to coordinate and arrange the stuff we've supposed to have done is laughable!

MY GRADE: A B.

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TITLE: Happyslapped by a Jellyfish
AUTHOR: Karl Pilkington

Picked this up on a whim at the library, having watched An Idiot Abroad and found it hilarious (albeit in a "this is so wrong it's good" kind of way). This is basically a collection of essays (if you can call them that) about Karl Pilkington's holidays -extracts of his diaries, basically.

It's easy: if you liked An Idiot Abroad you'll probably get a kick out of this, because Karl Pilkington writes exactly as he speaks (and if it was a ghostwriter that did it, then well done, it's spot on). It's ungrammatical, unsophisticated, and extremely funny. He's so deadpan and outrageous at the same time that this had quite a few laugh-out-loud moments, and a few unexpected bits of truth.

And by the way, fantastic title!

MY GRADE: A B-.

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Don't Tempt Me, by Loretta Chase

TITLE: Don't Tempt Me
AUTHOR: Loretta Chase

COPYRIGHT: 2009
PAGES: 384
PUBLISHER: Avon

SETTING: 19th century England
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: None

Spunky English girl overcomes impossible odds and outsmarts heathen villains. That’s the headline when Zoe Lexham returns to England. After twelve years in the exotic east, she’s shockingly adept in the sensual arts. She knows everything a young lady shouldn’t and nothing she ought to know. She’s a walking scandal, with no hope of a future...unless someone can civilize her.

Lucien de Grey, the Duke of Marchmont, is no knight in shining armor. He’s sarcastic, cynical, easily bored, and dangerous to women. He charms, seduces, and leaves them--with parting gifts of expensive jewelry to dry their tears. But good looks and charm, combined with money and rank, make him welcome everywhere. The most popular bachelor in the Beau Monde can easily save Zoe’s risqué reputation . . . if the wayward beauty doesn’t lead him into temptation, and a passion that could ruin them both.

When she was 12, Zoe Lexham was stolen from her family during a trip to Egypt and ended up in a harem (sounds almost like a Bertrice Small story, doesn't it?). The story starts years later, when she's managed to escape and make her way back to England. The joyful reunion does have plenty of joy, but it's not all roses, as her sisters are overwhelmed by the scandal caused by her return (society, high and low, finds the idea of the Harem Girl scandalous and titillating).

But if her return is a bolt out of the blue for her family, it's almost a bigger shock to Lucien, the Duke of Marchmont. Lucien is a friend of the family, having been Lord Lexham's ward for a while after a string of tragic losses left him on his own. As a very young man, he was very attached to little Zoe, if in a typical teenage boy "what a pest this girl is" way. When she disappeared in Egypt, Lucien was hit extremely hard by her loss. It was loss too many for him, not helped by the insinuations that Zoe's disappearance must have been somewhat her fault, as she was known for running away constantly, even being nicknamed "The Bolter".

In the years since Zoe's disappearance, Lucien has become a cold, disdainful man, every inch the superior Duke, but Zoe's return shakes his very foundations. After spending so many of her formative years in the harem, Zoe just does not behave like other English girls her age (she doesn't understand that one does not talk about pleasuring men in public, say), and Lucien finds her quite disconcerting. He also finds her quite attractive...

I loved this book, mainly because I adored what Chase did with the characters. Zoe's portrayal is especially fantastic. It's a difficult one to do well, the whole issue of her not knowing society's rules. It could have been played for laughs, which might have made Zoe look like an utter twit. Chase's treatment is much more thoughtful. She has to balance Zoe's years in the harem with the fact that she did spend the first 12 years of her life in England, so she does have at least some knowledge of what's appropriate and what isn't in Society. The moments of genuine ignorance of this were not that many, and all felt believable.

It's more that Zoe, having lived for so long and for such character-forming years outside of Society, can now see many of the strict rules for what they are: silly and arbitrary. And here Chase makes another good choice: she could have written a character who, because she sees the rules as silly and arbitrary, refuses to abide by them. She didn't. Zoe is intelligent enough to realise that silly or not, breaking those rules has consequences, so she has to be careful and can't do exactly what she likes just anywhere. Things like torturing Lucien are fine, she can be herself with him, but if she does something scandalous, say, at a party, the consequences could be pretty bad. She acknowledges that what happened to her has had an impact on the people around her, too. But also, that happy or not about her reappearance, this will have some impact on her sisters. Yes, they are horrible, horrible people, but some of what they say has a germ of truth in it.

The review at Dear Author makes the point that with Zoe, innocence is not the same as naivete, and that's very true. That's especially prominent in how Chase deals with her virginity (she was the concubine of an impotent man). For once, I didn't feel like the author was using this plot point to reassure readers that the heroine is still "good" (which infuriates me). There was a much more interesting point to it, and that's the contrast between Zoe's physical "innocence" and the fact that she's not naive at all, which is something that drives Lucien mad.

Lucien is a bit less interesting than Zoe, but that's just because Zoe is so fascinating. He's plenty interesting himself. One of my favourite types of hero is the cold, arrogant extremely self-possessed man who is completely shaken by the heroine. That's exactly what happens here. He just can't seem to behave in the proper way he's used to when Zoe is around. But that loss of self-possession wasn't just funny and sweet to see, it was also poignant. This is a man who's had so much loss in his life, that he can't quite believe he's actually got someone back. He also has a great difficulty in adjusting his view of the past. zoe had become just one more of those people who had left him, and this has coloured his view of the world. But now it's clear she didn't leave him, she was taken, and that shakes everything.

It's a great book, very much a Loretta Chase. The only reason it's not an A is because I found the very ugly, almost vicious, portrayal of other women, especially Zoe's sisters, quite jarring. It didn't seem to go with the tone of the rest of the book. Still, other than that, it's fantastic.

MY GRADE: A B+.

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The Rose Garden, by Susanna Kearsley

TITLE: The Rose Garden
AUTHOR: Susanna Kearsley

COPYRIGHT: 2011 (already out in the UK, out in October in the US)
PAGES: 480
PUBLISHER: Allison & Busby

SETTING: Contemporary and 18th century Cornwall
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: None

When Eva’s film star sister Katrina dies, she leaves California and returns to Cornwall, where they spent their childhood summers, to scatter Katrina’s ashes and in doing so return her to the place where she belongs.

But Eva must also confront the ghosts from her own past, as well as those from a time long before her own. For the house where she so often stayed as a child is home not only to her old friends the Halletts, but also to the people who had lived there in the eighteenth century. When Eva finally accepts that she is able to slip between centuries and see and talk to the inhabitants from hundreds of years ago, she soon finds herself falling for Daniel Butler, a man who lived – and died – long before she herself was born.

Eva begins to question her place in the present, and in laying her sister to rest, comes to realise that she too must decide where she really belongs, choosing between the life she knows and the past she feels so drawn towards.

I can't believe I haven't posted this review yet! I read The Rose Garden when it first came out months ago, and by the way, I loved the fact that for once, the geo restrictions worked in my favour and I was able to purchase it even earlier in e-format here in England. So anyway, I wrote up some notes about it as soon as I finished, and then never got round to actually tidying up and fleshing them up into a proper review. So here goes!

The Rose Garden was a bit of a surprise, and I must confess, at first I thought it wasn't a good surprise. You see, this is a time travel romance, and I hate time travel romance. This was definitely not what I was expecting. I knew there was going to be some sort of wrinkle in the time-space continuum, but I thought it was going to be more like Mariana, where the heroine has dreams of a previous life and follows the action that way, or The Winter Sea, where the heroine experiences a strange kind of ancestral memory and somehow starts including the life of an ancestor in the novel she's writing. But nope, this is proper time travel, with the heroine jumping back and forth from her life in present-day England to 300 years earlier. And you know what? I loved it!

Starting from the beginning, then: Eva has just lost her beloved sister, Katrina. When she goes to Cornwall to scatter her ashes in the place where they spent so many happy days in their youth, she makes contact again with the Halletts, good friends from back in the day. Feeling a bit at a loss after Katrina's death, Eva accepts their invitation to stay at their home, Trelowarth, for a few weeks.

For the first time in a while, Eva feels more at peace. She makes friends, rekindles old acquaintances and gets involved in the rose garden of the title, the business ran by the Halletts. But then things start going a bit weird, culminating with the realisation that she's jumped back in time. She's still in Trelowarth, but almost 300 years earlier.

And she's not alone there, the house is occupied by the handsome sea captain Daniel Butler and his Irish friend, Fergal, both of whom, Eva soon realises, are Jacobite supporters and up to their necks in plotting and planning and (this being Cornwall) smuggling. The authorities are quite suspicious of their activities and keep a close eye on them, so Eva has quite a few difficulties with the fact that she keeps popping back and forth in between the 21st and 18th centuries, period-appropriate clothing included! And as the relationship between her and Daniel deepens, she needs to decide where her home is.

As always with Kearsley, the book is rich in atmosphere and location. I wanted to go to Cornwall really badly as I was reading. It was also peopled with wonderful, memorable characters. Eva and Daniel are lovely, and so is their romance, and I especially enjoyed Fergal's charm and the true friendship that develops between him and Eva. Her relationships with the Halletts and the people in town are warm and well-developed as well.

I also really loved the sense of history. I have a limited knowledge of the Jacobites and the plots they were involved in, so it was all new to me. I do know how things ended, though, and so does Eva, which added an extra element here. Because if someone from the future suddenly showed up in my life, I would want nothing better than to know what happens in the future, what changes and how. And Daniel is quite interested in Eva's life, but he seems to be more into the fascinating objects she accidentally brings with her than in future events. Not that Eva is anxious to tell him. She's probably seen Back to the Future as well, and knows you need to be very careful not to alter events, so she's intentially vague, all the while angsting about the fact that she knows things don't end well for Daniel's cause. The way Kearsley deals with this is brilliant, though.

What's also brilliant is the resolution. I don't want to give anything away, but there's a wonderful surprise which ties several ends together, and which made me go "of course!" and wonder how I hadn't seen this coming. I also loved the answer to the eternal question in time travel of which of the two lovebirds is going to have to abandon their own time. Very well done.

The only bit that didn't completely satisfy was the ease with which Daniel accepted the idea that Eva had come from the future. I mean, if I suddenly came face to face with a time traveller from the future, it would take a lot more to convince me, even if they have all sorts of futuristic objects and even though the concept of time-travel is a familiar one to us these days. Back then they wouldn't have even considered the idea, and all sorts of supernatural and quite worrying explanations would have come to mind much more easily. Yes, there's the hint that Daniel isn't exactly new to strange occurrences, but still, it was much too easy.

Oh, well, that's a pretty minor issue, all in all, it's a fantastic read.

MY GRADE: A B+.

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The Cupid Effect, by Dorothy Koomson

TITLE: The Cupid Effect
AUTHOR: Dorothy Koomson

COPYRIGHT: 2003
PAGES: 342
PUBLISHER: Sphere

SETTING: Contemporary England
TYPE: Chick Lit
SERIES: None

There’s something magical about Ceri D’Altroy . . .

After leaving London to follow her heart’s desire to become a psychology lecturer, Ceri D’Altroy vows to leave her matchmaking ways behind her for good. Unfortunately, all she seems to do is inspire the new people she meets to change their lives.

There’s Ed, who’s decided to declare his love to a woman who is way out of his league; Mel and Claudine, two long-term friends who are now tempted to start an illicit affair; and Gwen, the chain-smoking head of department who has a deep, dark secret she only wants to share with her new employee.

No-one who comes into contact with Ceri is ever the same again. Could this unsuspecting young woman be modern-day Cupid?

Ceri D'Altroy has a perfectly good life in London. Her professional life is stable and successful and she's financially secure. Her personal life, however, is not up to the same standard. Not just her love-life (although that's not going too well, either): Ceri is the sort of person people tend to confide in, but in her case, they do so to a ridiculous extent. She's tired of being everyone's Agony Aunt, while not having anyone who really cares about her problems.

She needs a change. Ceri's dream has always been to become a psychology lecturer, and so she decides to give up on her life in London and go back to Leeds, where she went to university, to pursue that dream. Yes, it means she'll have to go back to being a lodger, when she's used to having her own flat, but it's a chance to have a clean start. No more Agony Aunt Ceri, she's going to mind her own business. But as you might suspect, it's not as easy as that.

This is Koomson's first book, but it doesn't really show. Her writing is assured and her plotting smooth. The one thing that makes The Cupid Effect's place in her bibliography clear is the tone. Koomson's books have got progressively more heart-wrenching and angsty, so in comparison to My Best Friend's Girl and Good Night, Beautiful, this is positively light-hearted. The level of angst is more akin to the fabulous The Chocolate Run: i.e. more chick lit with a heart than women's fiction that leaves you flattened.

Ceri is a lovely character, very much an Emma figure, whose efforts to help her friends often result in chaos. It was a lot of fun to see her deal with all the new people in her life and come to terms with herself. The book doesn't have a dominating central plot, and can sometimes feel a bit meandering, but I enjoyed Ceri so much that I was quite content to go along for the ride.

The cover I link to above is the edition I've got, but the one to the right seems to be the most recent one. I quite like both (much better than this ugly one, which seems to want to hide the fact the heroine is black) but this one probably reflects the amount of romance in the book better. Ceri does get her happy ending and her romance, but it's not the focus of the book. It didn't disappoint me, but I think it would be best to come into the book not expecting a romance novel proper.


MY GRADE: A B+.

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The Testament of Jessie Lamb, by Jane Rogers

TITLE: The Testament of Jessie Lamb
AUTHOR: Jane Rogers

COPYRIGHT: 2011
PAGES: 240
PUBLISHER: Sandstone Press

SETTING: Contemporary NW England (somewhere outside Manchester, I think)
TYPE: Fiction
SERIES: None

Women are dying in their millions. Some blame scientists, some see the hand of God, some see human arrogance reaping the punishment it deserves. Jessie Lamb is an ordinary girl living in extraordinary times: as her world collapses, her idealism and courage drive her towards the ultimate act of heroism. If the human race is to survive, it’s up to her.But is Jessie heroic? Or is she, as her father fears, impressionable, innocent, incapable of understanding where her actions will lead? Set just a month or two in the future, in a world irreparably altered by an act of biological terrorism, The Testament of Jessie Lamb explores a young woman’s determination to make her life count for something, as the certainties of her childhood are ripped apart.

This month my book club decided to read something out of the Man Booker prize longlist. The book chosen was Patrick McGuinness' The Last Hundred Days (and I'm halfway through it as I write this), but the one that caught my attention when I read the summaries was the one that seemed to be the most unlikely choice for the Booker.

The Testament of Jessie Lamb is set in the near future, in a world still reeling from a bioterrorist attack that unleashed Maternal Death Syndrome (MDS) on humanity. Everyone is infected with a deadly virus that is activated when a woman is pregnant. There is no cure, and the millions of women who happened to be pregnant when the attack happened have all died.

Our protagonist and narrator is 16-year-old Jessie. As the book starts, she's been imprisoned by her father, who's determined to prevent her from doing something -we're not told what until later. Her diary entries written during her captivity frame the story of what brought her to that point, and what happened afterwards.

At the beginning, TTOJL reminded me a bit of another book featuring a teenager in the midst of an unfolding apocalypse, Life As We Knew It. Like the narrator of that book, Jessie is often too consumed in her private worries to do more than cursorily mention some of the Big Stuff going on around the world. And yet, even through her uninterested reports, we get an excellent idea of what's happening, in fact, what must be happening behind some of those headlines, even when Jessie herself doesn't even consider that.

Gradually, though, circumstances make Jessie more and more engaged in what's going on. The end of the world as we know it and the possibility that there might be no more children born ever again has unleashed a wave of activism and protest groups amongst the young, representing every possible interest and viewpoint. And Jessie and her friends are in the thick of it.

Soon comparisons to Life As We Knew It flew out the window and the book started acquiring tinges of Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Scientists have developed a way to impregnate young volunteers (the younger the better) with vaccinated embryos and then keep their bodies artificially alive through the pregnancy, even as their brains turn to mush.

My first instinct with Jessie was to be exactly like her parents and dismiss her fascination with the Sleeping Beauties (as the volunteers are called) as pure teenage melodrama, the typical fantasy of "I will die in an extremely heroic way and then they'll be sorry". I rolled my eyes when she first came up with her plan. But after a while, I had no choice but to start taking her and her decisions more seriously. Stroppy teenager or not, she does have a point about the adults around her being hypocritical, talking eloquently about the need for people to sacrifice for the future of humankind, but that's only as long as it doesn't have a personal cost to them. Talk, talk, talk, without actually doing anything, that's what grown-ups are to Jessie and her cohort, and damned if they are not proved right.

The genius of this book is that Jessie doesn't change from emo teen into inspiring, corageous heroine. She's still irritating and immature, even when her actions are inspiring, corageous and mature. I was still rolling my eyes and not particularly liking her as she made the most extraordinary and brave decisions.

This is not really an "issue" book and the focus is on Jessie, but as her story unfolds, Rogers provides a thoughtful treatment of quite thorny subjects. We all bring prejudices to our reading, and I was well aware of mine bristling. The Sleeping Beauties shouldn't have to do it, why are women always the victims, and yes, I instinctively aligned myself with the FLAME activists in the book in opposing the self-sacrifices. They argued that if MDS was killing men, "they" would have sorted out a solution already, and young women shouldn't have to be sacrificing themselves. And yet, young men have forever been the ones to volunteer for wars in which it was pretty clear a good number of them would be simply cannon fodder, so it's not that easy. Are these girls old enough to make this decision by themselves, even if they seem to be making it for the right reasons? What if they're deluding themselves? And actually, what are the right reasons? No conclusions, I'm afraid, but I liked that Rogers made me question these things, and by setting up a story that looked deceptively simple.

MY GRADE: A B+.

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Demon Marked, by Meljean Brook

TITLE: Demon Marked (excerpt)
AUTHOR: Meljean Brook

COPYRIGHT: 2011 (comes out today)
PAGES: 336
PUBLISHER: Berkley Sensation

SETTING: Contemporary US and London
TYPE: Paranormal romance
SERIES: 7th full length novel int he Guardians series

Nicholas St. Croix is familiar with the evil of demons. After his father’s death, a demon took over his mother’s body and raised him. Six years ago, his “mother” was responsible for the disappearance of the woman he loved, and Nicholas swore he’d find her—even if he had to go to Hell and back. Except she finds him first—and with one tormented kiss, he knows she too is a demon. Now he is determined to take his revenge…

Ash is a half-demon with no memory of her past or how she got to Hell. All she knows is that Nicholas St. Croix holds the key to her identity. And though he’s clearly drawn to her, Nicholas makes no secret of his distrust of her. Yet one kiss at a time, he breaks down her defenses as they battle an array of demons and Guardians. But is Ash’s greatest enemy the man at her side?

Ash has no idea who (or what) she is. She has practically no memories from before the day she was dumped in a psychiatric hospital by a scary woman with mad eyes, who warned her not to kill anyone or interfere with their free will. In the three years since, she's discovered only a few things about herself: she doesn't feel anything (lacks affect and empathy, as her psychiatrist puts it), she doesn't need to sleep or eat, her senses are much stronger than those of people around her, and her eyes sometimes glow red. Her memories are very vague... a person with a terrifying voice calling her Ash-something-or-other and an explosion of pain, plus a vague sense of familiarity about some things.

Ash is determined to find out more about herself and after escaping the hospital, her research leads her to Nicholas St. Croix. Ash looks exactly like his former girlfriend, who disappeared into thin air after, according to Nicholas, being shot by his mother, Madelyn.

When Nicholas meets Ash he immediately knows she's a demon. He knows he should kill her straight away, as his Guardian contact advises, but the possibility of using her to further his life's mission is too tempting. Because Nicholas lives for revenge. When he was a young boy a demon took his mother's place and proceeded to make his and his father's lives hell. His father was finally driven to suicide, and Nicholas came really close to it. He's now bent on finding that demon again and forcing it to reveal what happened to his mother. Ash clearly has some sort of link to it, so even if her behaviour is disconcerting for a demon and she makes him come perilously close to laughter, when he should be hating her, they'll need to stick together.

So, this is going to be yet another gushing review of a Meljean Brook novel (in a way, I guess it wasn't so bad to have been disappointed by The Blushing Bounder -that might give me a bit more credibility regarding this author!). I loved it. Once I'd started it, I could barely put it down.

It's a book with two quite different halves, which can sometimes be a bit problematic, but worked perfectly here. Much as I enjoyed the second half, which brings us back into the heart of the Guardians' world and has more action, the first half was my favourite, for the intensity of the romance.

It's a bit of a road/cabin romance in this half, with Ash and Nicholas forced to spend time in close proximity and to get to know each other. Nicholas starts out very clear about the evil of demons, and the impossibility that any one of them could do anything that is not designed to make humans' lives hell. So Ash completely throws him. He just can't figure out what the twist is, why she's doing what she does and what's in it for her.

Ash is completely disarming, and very fun to read. Her role in this part of the book is a really cool twist on the wide-eyed innocent, first as a result of having no real emotions other than curiosity, and when she starts to feel again, as a result of having no inhibitions and, having entered a bargain, with Nicholas, it not being possible for her to lie. She soon becomes a bit of a mischief-maker, as well, so she delights in keeping Stone-Cold St. Croix permanently off-balance.

Nicholas changes massively in this relatively short time, but it was believable. His interactions with Ash were so intense that it made sense that he would be forced to reevaluate what was an almost irrational hatred, and the feelings that emerge are all the stronger for that.

And then the big action starts, which doesn't sideline the romance at all, because the romance is what brings even more significance to what's going on. It is, as always with Brook, a plot full of fantastic twists and turns. At one point I was surprised to think that the way out of the pickle Ash was in seemed quite clear. That didn't seem right for a Guardians book, and sure enough, not long after that, there was a twist that changed things, and moved this to a "how on earth are they going to get out of that?" situation. I loved it.

Now, what a lot of long-time readers of the Guardians are going to be wondering is yes, but what about Michael? All I will say is that this late in the series I was expecting to see some big developments in the bigger picture, and I got just that. I did find it a teeny bit disappointing that the a-ha moment, when what needed to happen became clear, felt a bit deus ex machina, when I would have preferred a more organic realisation, but it was not a big problem. It worked, and now I can't wait to see how things are resolved.

Part of me is gutted that the series is coming close to an end, but it's all just so exciting and I want to know that ending so badly that I don't mind!

MY GRADE: An A-.

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