The Blurb:
New York Times bestselling author Lauren Willig "spins a web of lust, power and loss" (Kate Alcott) that is by turns epic and intimate, transporting and page-turning. As a lawyer in a large Manhattan firm, just shy of making partner, Clementine Evans has finally achieved almost everything she’s been working towards—but now she’s not sure it’s enough. Her long hours have led to a broken engagement and, suddenly single at thirty-four, she feels her messy life crumbling around her. But when the family gathers for her grandmother Addie’s ninety-ninth birthday, a relative lets slip hints about a long-buried family secret, leading Clemmie on a journey into the past that could change everything. . . . What follows is a potent story that spans generations and continents, bringing an Out of Africa feel to a Downton Abbey cast of unforgettable characters. From the inner circles of WWI-era British society to the skyscrapers of Manhattan and the red-dirt hills of Kenya, the never-told secrets of a woman and a family unfurl.(less)
My Thoughts:
I was very intrigued (and pleased) to hear about this new novel by Lauren Willig – I adore her swashbuckling, bodice-ripping, laugh-out-loud historical/contemporary romances – but I know all too well how a successful series can become a straitjacket for an author and I’m always wanting authors I love to be bold and take a few risks, and try something new and different.
So I came to this new book by Lauren Willig genuinely excited and curious and wanting her to succeed. And I’m very glad to say she has succeeded brilliantly.
I’ve always loved books that move back and forth between a contemporary setting and an historical one. I have always loved books that combine mystery, romance, drama and a vivid sense of place and time. THE ASHFORD AFFAIR has everything I love in a book, and it’s all put together in what seems like a simple and effortless way … until you try to do it yourself.
We begin with the story of Clementine Evans, a driven 34-year-old lawyer who is beginning to wonder if she has sacrificed too much for her career. She is running late – again! – to a family function celebrating her beloved grandmother Adeline’s 99th birthday. She is shocked and saddened to find her grandmother is frail and begin to wander in her wits … and calling her by another name.
Then the narrative goes back in time to Adeline’s childhood. Her parents have been killed, and she is sent as a charity child to live with the uncle she has never met, who lives with his family at the grand manor house, Ashford Park. Her Bea is her only friend, even though she has a habit of getting Adeline into trouble.
The two girls grow up together - one falls in love and the other marries. It is the ‘20s, and the giddy gaiety of the times does not suit serious, bookish Adeline. The young women grow apart, and, in their own way, hurt each other badly.
Meanwhile, Clementine realises that her family hides a secret … a story of love, betrayal, and possible murder.
The two stories touch and part, touch and part, in an intricate yet graceful dance, each new revelation helping the suspense to build. I was genuinely surprised at a couple of plot points and genuinely uttered a deep aaaah! at the end.
Loved it!
You might also like to read my review of The Huntress by Kate Quinn:
BOOK REVIEW: The Huntress by Kate Quinn
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
Mystery novelist Harriet Vane knew all about poisons, and when her former lover died in the manner prescribed in one of her books, a jury of her peers had a hangman's noose in mind. But Lord Peter Wimsey was determined to find her innocent.
My Thoughts:
This is the sixth book in Dorothy L. Sayers’s series of Golden Age murder mysteries featuring the aristocrat-turned-private-detective Lord Peter Wimsey, and the one where the series really begins to turn into something special. All of Sayers’s mysteries are clever, but this one is a little more substantial than the earlier books, with a lot more heart. To begin with, Lord Peter and his clever valet Bunter seemed like a caricature of Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves (the comedic creations of P G. Wodehouse), though the occasional flare-up of “shell shock” gave Lord Peter a little more gravitas. By Book 6, Lord Peter is less of a fool and a fop, and more of a clever young man who hides himself behind a constant stream of light-hearted banter.
Strong Poison is truly electrified, however, by the introduction of the character of Harriet Vane, a strong-minded young crime novelist who finds herself on trial for the murder of her ex-lover. Lord Peter has fallen in love with Harriet, but she is determined not to return his regard and resists his charms valiantly. This dash of sexual tension (cunningly concealed as romantic longings) adds both a greater degree of suspense to the puzzle, and humanises Lord Peter, making him much more likeable. A true crime classic.
You might also like to read my review of Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers:
https://kateforsyth.com.au/what-katie-read/book-review-whose-body-and-clouds-of-witness-by-dorothy-l-sayers
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
Why did Marcel Proust have bonsai beside his bed? What was Jane Austen doing, coveting an apricot? How was Friedrich Nietzsche inspired by his ‘thought tree'? In Philosophy in the Garden, Damon Young explores one of literature's most intimate relationships: authors and their gardens. For some, the garden provided a retreat from workaday labour; for others, solitude's quiet counsel. For all, it played a philosophical role: giving their ideas a new life. Philosophy in the Garden reveals the profound thoughts discovered in parks, backyards and pot-plants. It does not provide tips for mowing overgrown cooch grass, or mulching a dry Japanese maple. It is a philosophical companion to the garden's labours and joys.
My Thoughts:
I have always been interested in philosophy and have tried my hand at reading books on the subject over the years, usually to find myself baffled and even, if I’m to be truthful, a little humiliated. Why can’t anyone ever express themselves a little more clearly? I’d think. Is it them or is it me?
Nonetheless, I continue to be interested in ideas. I am also utterly fascinated by the lives – both inner and outer – of writers and creative artists.
Plus, of course, I love gardens. I spend a little bit of time in my own garden nearly every day. I love to see things I have grown and cared for flourish, I love the sense of creating order out of chaos, and I have a transcendental longing for beauty.
So the title of Damon Young’s new book ‘Philosophy in the Garden’ caught my eye as soon as it was released. I read it slowly – one chapter every few days or so, whilst reading other novels in between. I found it utterly engaging and most illuminating.
Damon is Honorary Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, and has written a number of books that bring together philosophical ideas with popular culture. His style is very readable and full of wit and personality. For example, he describes Aristotle has being known for his ‘schmick wardrobe and bling.’ Reading his work is like hanging out in a bar late at night, drinking cosmopolitans, and arguing about whether God really exists or whether He (She? It?) is just a fictive construct created to fulfil an existential human longing (whilst trying not to slur the word ‘existential’ too much).
The premise of the book is very simple. Damon has examined, in a series of short and lively essays, the lives of half-a-dozen authors in relation to their garden (or lack of garden) with a particular focus on their philosophies. I was very familiar with some of the writers’ work (Jane Austen, George Orwell, Emily Dickinson), had tried and failed to read some of the others (Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre) and had never heard of one (Nikos Kazantzakis).
Each chapter was full of illuminations and insights. I knew Jane Austen loved her garden but did not realise that her writing suffered when she was away from it. I was particularly enamoured of one of Damon’s points in this essay, regarding the scene in ‘Pride & Prejudice’ in which Elizabeth sees Pemberley for the first time (as Damon says, this scene is ‘known across the civilised world as the home of Colin Firth’s wet shirt’). This is the one scene in P&P that I have never liked, because I thought it made Elizabeth seem to start liking Darcy more because of the wealth of his possessions. However, Damon interprets the scene a little differently. The garden reflects Darcy’s soul – beautiful, ordered, tasteful, and serene. ‘She had never seen,’ Austen wrote, ‘a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by awkward taste.’ Damon goes on to show how this ordered and serene approach to gardening reflected Jane Austen’s own life and philosophy, and so not only made me see one of my favourite authors more clearly, but has deepened my love for one of my all-time favourite books. This is a true gift … and Damon repeated this revelation for me in the chapter on Emily Dickinson, quite possibly the poet I love the most.
I also learnt a great deal.
I did not know Proust kept bonsai by his bed, or that Friedrich Nietzsche lived in a ménage a trois (this was one chapter when I’d have liked to have had a whole lot more details!) I also had never understood Nietzschean philosophy before and now I feel as if I could, with a little more reading and thinking. In fact, I went and googled Nietzsche, and spent a few hours reading up on him.
I also discovered a new author, one of the greatest gifts anyone can give me.
I had never heard of Nikos Kazantzakis, one of the authors Damon examines, but just listen to this:
‘Words! Words! There is no other salvation! I have nothing in my power but twenty-four little lead soldiers. I will mobilise. I will raise an army.’
It’s something I could have written myself, so exactly does it express my own evangelist love of words and books. I am now searching out the work of Kazantzakis, so look forward to some more raving on him in the future.
Thank you, Damon!
You might also like to read my review of The Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks:
VINTAGE BOOK REVIEW: The Shepherd’s Life by James Rebanks
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically.
The leader, and soon Alice’s greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who’s never asked a man’s permission for anything. They will be joined by three other singular women who become known as the Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky.
What happens to them–and to the men they love–becomes an unforgettable drama of loyalty, justice, humanity and passion. These heroic women refuse to be cowed by men or by convention. And though they face all kinds of dangers in a landscape that is at times breathtakingly beautiful, at others brutal, they’re committed to their job: bringing books to people who have never had any, arming them with facts that will change their lives.
Based on a true story rooted in America’s past, The Giver of Stars is unparalleled in its scope and epic in its storytelling. Funny, heartbreaking, enthralling, it is destined to become a modern classic–a richly rewarding novel of women’s friendship, of true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great beyond.
My Thoughts:
I had read and loved JoJo Moyes’s previous historical novel, The Girl You Left Behind, so once I heard her new book was about Depression-era librarians who rode out on horseback, delivering books to poor people in the wild mountains of Kentucky, I knew I wanted to read it. It’s just such a wonderful premise for a novel!
The story follows a young English woman named Alice who marries a rich and handsome American, hoping to escape her stultifying life at home. However, she finds herself just as bored and restless in Kentucky as she was in the English countryside. Against her father-in-law’s wishes, she signs up to be a travelling librarian, and discovers new friends as well as new purpose. However, there are many dangers for young women riding out alone through the mountains, and Alice and her fellow librarians find themselves facing prejudice, injustice and violence.
Inspired by the true story of Eleanor Roosevelt’s travelling librarians, The Giver of Stars is a really gorgeous book, just brimming over with beauty and emotion. I loved it.
You might also like to read my review of Clara and Mr Tiffany here:
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
Gal and Deirdre have forgotten something. something really, really important. When her grandmother dies, Deirdre is left alone in a crumbling block of flats. Looking out the window one misty night, she sees a boy who seems familiar. Together, he and Deirde must discover the secret of the old building, before it collapses and the secret is lost forever . . .
My Thoughts:
Cassandra Golds is one of the most extraordinary writers in the world. Her work is very hard to define, because there is no-one else writing quite like she does. Her books are beautiful, haunting, strange, and heart-rending. They are old-fashioned in the very best sense of the word, in that they seem both timeless and out-of-time. They are fables, or fairy tales, filled with truth and wisdom and a perilous kind of beauty. They remind me of writers I adored as a child – George Macdonald Fraser, Nicholas Stuart Gray, Elizabeth Goudge, or Eleanor Farjeon at her most serious and poetic.
I have read and loved all of Cassandra’s work but Pureheart took my breath away. Literally. It was like being punched in the solar plexus. I could not breathe for the lead weight of emotion on my heart. I haven’t read a book that packs such an emotional wallop since Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls. This is a story about a bullied and emotionally abused child and those scenes are almost unbearable to read. It is much more than that, however.
Pureheart is the darkest of all fairy tales, it is the oldest of all quest tales, it is an eerie and enchanting story about the power of love and forgiveness. It is, quite simply, extraordinary.
You might also like to read my review of Molly & Pim by Martine Murray :
VINTAGE BOOK REVIEW: Molly & Pim & The Millions of Stars by Martine Murray
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
A compelling tale of love, secrets, and the power of forgiveness.
1901: Isabella Winterbourne has suffered the worst loss a woman can know. She can no longer bear her husband nor his oppressive upper-class family. On a voyage between London and Sydney to accompany a priceless gift to the Australian parliament, Isabella is the sole survivor of a shipwreck off the sun-drenched Queensland coast. But in this strange new place, she finds she cannot escape her past quite as easily as she d hoped.
2011: A woman returns from Paris to her beachside home town to reconcile with her sister. But she, too, has a past that is hard to escape and her sister is not in a mood to forgive her. Strange noises at night and activity at the abandoned lighthouse raise her curiosity, and she finds herself investigating a century-old town mystery.
My Thoughts:
‘Lighthouse Bay’ begins in 1901, with a woman – the only survivor of a shipwreck - dragging a chest full of treasure down a deserted beach. The narrative then moves to contemporary times, with a woman secretly grieving at the funeral of her married lover. These two women – Isabella Winterbourne and Libby Slater – are joined through time by a lighthouse and its secrets and mysteries.
Tightly plotted and quickly paced, I found myself quite unable to put the novel down, even reading it with one hand while I was cooking dinner with the other. It deftly weaves together romance, suspense, and adventure, all acted out by a cast of strong, defiant women and a suitably dastardly villain. Although it has various love affairs in it, this novel is not about love. It is really more about the relationships between women – as friends, as sisters, and as mothers.
I absolutely loved it! One of my favourite books of 2012.
You might also like to read my review of Ember Island:
VINTAGE BOOK REVIEW: Ember Island by Kimberley Freeman
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
In eighteenth century London, porcelain is the most seductive of commodities; fortunes are made and lost upon it. Kings do battle with knights and knaves for possession of the finest pieces and the secrets of their manufacture.
For Genevieve Planché, an English-born descendant of Huguenot refugees, porcelain holds far less allure; she wants to be an artist, a painter of international repute, but nobody takes the idea of a female artist seriously in London. If only she could reach Venice.
When Genevieve meets the charming Sir Gabriel Courtenay, he offers her an opportunity she can’t refuse; if she learns the secrets of porcelain, he will send her to Venice. But in particular, she must learn the secrets of the colour blue…
The ensuing events take Genevieve deep into England’s emerging industrial heartlands, where not only does she learn about porcelain, but also about the art of industrial espionage.
With the heart and spirit of her Huguenot ancestors, Genevieve faces her challenges head on, but how much is she willing to suffer in pursuit and protection of the colour blue?
My Thoughts:
In eighteenth century London, porcelain is highly valued because of its delicacy, transparency and strength. Yet the world’s most sought-after porcelain is manufactured in France, and English porcelain makers will do anything they can compete.
Genevieve Planché, an English-born descendant of French Huguenot refugees, wants to be an artist, but such a dream is impossible for a young woman in England at that time. So when she meets a rich and charming man named Sir Gabriel Courtenay, who offers to send her to Venice to learn oil painting from the masters, she is seriously tempted. There’s just one catch. He wants her to spy for him. An English porcelain factory is said to have cracked the secret of firing the most astonishing cobalt-blue colour, and Sir Gabriel wants to know how.
The book races along at a cracking pace, as Genevieve faces danger after danger in her quest to find out the secret of the colour blue. Not least of all is the danger to her heart …
A hugely enjoyable historical spy-adventure, The Blue also taught me a lot I didn’t know about the porcelain industry and the history of my favourite colour.
You might also like to read my review of Silvered Heart by Katherine Clements:
https://kateforsyth.com.au/what-katie-read/vintage-book-review-the-silvered-heart-by-katherine-clements
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
France, 1794. In the aftermath of the bloody end to the French Revolution, Rose de Beauharnais stumbles from prison on the day she is to be guillotined. Within a decade, she'll transform into the scandalous socialite who marries Napoleon Bonaparte, become Empress Josephine of France and build a garden of wonders with plants and animals she gathers from across the globe.
But she must give Bonaparte an heir or she risks losing everything.
Two other women from very different spheres are tied to the fate of the Empress Josephine - Marthe Desfriches and Anne Serreaux. Their lives are put at risk as they each face confronting obstacles in their relationships and in their desire to become mothers.
From the author of Into the World comes a richly imagined historical novel about obsession, courage, love and marriage.
My Thoughts:
When I was writing my novel The Wild Girl, which is set during the Napoleonic wars, I read a great deal about Empress Joséphine. She’s a fascinating woman. Born in Martinique and called Rose, her family was wealthy and owned a sugarcane plantation worked by slaves. She was sent to France as a teenager to marry a young aristocrat she had never met. Although they had two children together, Eugène and Hortense de Beauharnais, the marriage was desperately unhappy.
During the French Revolution, Rose and her husband were arrested, and he was guillotined. Rose was freed five days later, only hours before her own execution. She managed to survive as a mistress to rich and powerful men, and married the young general Napoléon Bonaparte, who ultimately crowed himself Emperor. It was he who insisted on her being called Joséphine, a name she never much liked.
Rose bought the Château de Malmaison in April 1799, when Napoléon was away fighting in Egypt, and spent a fortune restoring it. She lavished particular attention on its gardens, which she wanted to be the ‘the most beautiful and curious … in Europe’. Her rose garden was particularly exquisite (hence my interest in it), and I actually grow a sweet-scented, multi-petalled pale pink rose named ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ in my garden.
I tell you all this as a kind of background for Stephanie Parkyn’s new book, which is centred on this beautiful, exotic and very expensive garden. It begins with Rose’s release from prison and ends with her finding peace there in her later years, divorced and abandoned by the emperor.
Because I know her story so well, I was not expecting any surprises, but Stephanie Parkyn has woven a luminous, enthralling tale of love, treachery, treason and friendship out of the Empress Joséphine’s life that is full of unexpected twists and turns.
You might also like to read my review of Into the World by Stephanie Parkyn:
https://kateforsyth.com.au/what-katie-read/book-review-into-the-world-by-stephanie-parkyn
The Blurb (from Goodreads):
Agnes Grey is the touching story of a young girl who decides to enter the world as a governess, but whose bright illusions of acceptance, freedom and friendship are gradually destroyed.
Drawing on her own experience, Anne Brontë charts the development of gentle Agnes and sympathetically depicts the harsh treatment she receives along the way. Leaving her idyllic home and close-knit family, Agnes arrives at the Bloomfield’s residence, inside whose walls reign cruelty and neglect. Although faced with tyrannical children and over-indulgent parents, the generosity of spirit and warm candour learnt from her own family never desert her. Agnes also remains firm in the Murray household, where she is used by the two disdainful young daughters for their own deceitful ends and where her chances of happiness are almost spoiled for her.
A deeply moving account, Agnes Grey seriously discusses the contempt and inhumanity shown towards the poor though educated woman of the Victorian age, whose only resource was to become a governess.
My Thoughts:
A long-time lover of the works of the Brontë sisters, I am ashamed to admit I had never read Agnes Grey before. I don’t know why. I have a beautiful hardcover Folio set of their collected works, and most of them are well-thumbed and even tattered.
I re-read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall last year, and that reanimated my interest in the youngest and less well-known Brontë sisters. I determined to read her first book this year and have at last managed to do so.
It’s only a slim book, and was inspired by Anne Brontë’s true experiences working as a governess in the early 19th century. The heroine Agnes is young and idealistic, and sets out to help her family by trying to bring in some income. Her first position is caring for a handful of cruel, tyrannical children whose parents never punish them for anything wrong that they do (including killing baby birds with a stone). Her second position is as governess to two rich, spoilt young ladies who almost undermine Agnes’s own chance of happiness out of spite. It’s delicate, haunting, and sad, for – although Agnes finds happiness at the end – we know that poor Anne died tragically young and without knowing her work would end up being so celebrated.
GET YOUR COPY OF AGNES GREY HEREYou might also like to read my review of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall:
VINTAGE BOOK REVIEW:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
