Moloka'i - Alan Brennert

What an interesting read! Not only is this book an accurate account of how the Hawaiian leadership and the US government dealt with a significant leprosy (Hansen's disease) outbreak, but it tells the story of one young girl, Rachel Kalama who is diagnosed with leprosy very early in life and what her ensuing years look like, as she is exiled to the government sanctioned quarantine community of lepers on the island of Moloka'i.

This was a sad story, but make no mistake in thinking that the life of Rachel was a total downer. Alan Brennert has created a cast of strong characters that support the story of the leper colony and the changes it goes through, as doctors and missionaries work to learn about the disease, develop treatments, and attempt to make life as normal as they can for the people being ravaged by the disease. The book is a fictionalized story of Rachel and her family and friends, but the history of the colony on Moloka'i and the information about the disease is very well researched and presented.

The historical novel centers on Rachel Kalama. She is a young Hawaiian girl who is diagnosed with the disease when she is seven. Rachel comes from a large close family, but the moment her diagnosis is confirmed, she is removed from her family and shipped with other afflicted people to the leper colony on Moloka'i. She is housed at a Catholic mission school with other girls and grows up in a loving, but isolated community. Because society doesn't understand the disease and fears the ravaging nature of the illness, contact with with others is discouraged and made very difficult by the strict rules of quarantine. Thus, a vibrant community grows within the colony amongst those living there. The story follows Rachel as she grows up, makes friends, loses them to the disease, marries, takes many experimental treatments, and finally has some success in fighting her form of the disease. No spoilers ... it's a great story and she is a strong, smart, and feisty character that never gives in to total despair.

The book is also a terrific read for those who don't know the the story of Moloka'i's history or the particulars of what leprosy really is. I learned so much about the disease by reading this book. I don't know that Alan Brennert has written any other books, but he did an awesome job on this one ... enough said.

The Black Tower - Louis Bayard

I grew up in the extreme northern reaches of New York State. That being said, there was this lovely but decrepit chalet-type home that sat on the outer border of of small town called Fort Covington (near Massena, my hometown) that had the legend of the lost Dauphin attached to it. I was always intrigued by the legend that Louis-Charles, the son of Marie Antoinette and Louis the XVI was somehow spirited away from the Jacobin prison in which he and his sister were held. The story goes that royalists helped him flee prison, cross the Atlantic and settle in anonymity in a rural backwater in order to keep him from forces that would see him dead. I wondered and built fantastic stories in my mind how a prince might be guarded by faithful and monied allies and sent to safety to live out his life away from the horror that he'd surely witnessed during the Reign of Terror.

Finding Louis Bayard's rollicking story about the legend of the lost Dauphin, a rowdy, raucous French detective called Eugene Vidocq that has a penchant for outlandishly accurate disguises, a young doctor who is pioneering the study venereal disease at a time when it was ravaging the French elite, and a young French gardener who is mysteriously innocent for one his age was such a fun experience! This mystery/historical thriller is masterfully written and even more masterfully narrated. It was wonderful!

I'll not spoil the storyline by giving away plot, but just know that there is murder, subterfuge, hidden relics of the Reign of Terror and the following Napoleonic era, royals and gentry who are less than honest about their past, bawdy humor, and wonderful characters that are endearing. Great read, even better listen. Simon Vance is a professional reader for the Royal National Institute for the Blind as well as a radio announcer for the BBC radio ... he does an incredible job developing the character of Vidocq. His command at reading and interpreting the story is just stellar!

Okay .. have I gushed enough ? If you're doing a road trip, working at home at a sit-down project or puttering in the kitchen this would be a worthy audio experience. I'm off to return the 'book' to the library and check out another by Louis Bayard.

Flight of the Sparrow - Amy Belding Brown

“It is a solemn sight to see so many Christians lying in their blood, some here, and some there, like a company of sheep torn by wolves, all of them stripped naked by a company of hell-hounds, roaring, singing, ranting, and insulting, as if they would have torn our very hearts out; yet the Lord by His almighty power preserved a number of us from death, for there were twenty-four of us taken alive and carried captive.” - Mary Rowlandson

The captive narrative of Mary Rowlandson, redeemed prisoner of native tribes that fought for their land and lifestyle during King Philip's War, became an instant phenomenon when it was published in 1682. Mary was the wife of Joseph Rowlandson, pastor for the frontier settlement of Lancaster, Massachusetts. During the winter of 1675, the settlement was attacked by Nipmuck, Narragansett, and Wampanoag tribal warriors. The homes and barns were burnt, many of its citizens killed, and twenty four survivors were taken captive. 

Amy Belding Brown takes the bare bones of this horrific chapter of Colonial American history and builds a strong fictional account of Mary Rowlandson's voyage into the heart of native culture and back again. Brown does not 'gild the lily' by trying to write a romantic account. She honestly confronts the harsh forced trudge of the captives as they deny their wounds in an effort to survive the pace that their captors set, negotiate a new culture with the confusing babel of different tribes' languages, vastly different sexual politics, and confounding behaviors that can seem at one moment brutal and at another compassionate.

Mary loses one daughter on the forced march west and north toward the modern day New Hampshire/Massachusetts border and the Connecticut River valley. When Sarah dies, her body is buried by the natives in a show of respect to Mary's beliefs. Mary must move on, praying that her other two children are being treated well by their captors and that her husband, Joseph survived the attack and is working toward her release and redemption.

As time passes,though, Mary comes to be conflicted about her perceptions of the natives and their culture. She finds much freedom, even as a captive. She comes to value her connection to nature and the beauty of the natural world around her, and she values her burgeoning friendships with certain of her native captors and fellow 'slaves'. She questions God's purpose in placing her in the position of a slave and begins to see it as an awakening experience, meant to make her question the values and policies of her Puritan world. She worries how she will ever adapt to a return to English society should she be 'redeemed'.

This book is an excellent treatment of the captive experience that Rowlandson and others suffered during the great cultural clash between the colonizing and native cultures of the 17th century. Amy Belding Brown has taken historical fiction and used the genre well to bring a harrowing time to life for the reader, giving a thought-provoking take on a brutal time. It is obvious that she researched her topic well, as the novel closely follows events as written in the true-life account that Mary Rowlandson wrote of in her book called The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mary Rowlandson. That narrative was published in 1682. Belding's novel continues Mary's story after her ransom and brings into question the role of Increase Mather, the influential Puritan pastor and academic in its writing and publication. Mary's reversal of circumstances create an unsettling feeling within the reader ...she becomes the sparrow in the cage - once captive in a cage, set free during a chaotic clash, only to return to the cage at a later date. What to make of the sparrow's song? Hmmmm.

It left me wondering just how well Mary truly adapted when she did return to English society after her ransom was paid and she made her way home.

Post Note: I found this book so compelling because one of my husband's ancestors, one John Allbee, was a victim of the Mendon massacre of  July 1675, carried out by the same native tribes  that attacked Mary Rowlandson's Lancaster in February of that year. Benjamin and his grandson, John Allbee (the younger) fled the region and settled for a time near Rehoboth, Massachusetts before going north into New Hampshire and Vermont after the natives had been 'subdued'.  

Songs of Willow Frost - Jamie Ford

Jamie Ford's debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet,was a good sell,but got mixed reviews. I read it and liked it so much that it got passed around my 'family reading circle'. Last week, I found his second novel, Songs of Willow Frost at the local library. The second novel returns to urban Seattle. This time he centers the story around the time of the Depression-era financial free fall and the rise of America's burgeoning film industry. His story centers around young William Eng, a young resident of the Sacred Heart Orphanage, who is turning twelve and still wonders when his mother will return for him. When he learns of the Hollywood actress Willow Frost's triumphant return to the stage in Seattle, he is sure that she is his mother. He sets out to see and speak to her. Thus begins a series of flashback chapters that tell of Willow's and William's sad lives.

This is a melodramatic story that gives an excellent snapshot of the prejudice within the Asian community of the time and in the larger American society - prejudice against actors, Asian-American citizens, the poor, and women. Liu Song, William's mother, compromises herself in many ways -by passively accepting 'her place' within her family, by changing her Asian name in order to become more acceptable within the theatrical world, by giving up her parental rights when she becomes financially strapped, and finally by losing her self-respect when she is confronted by a government child welfare officer who insists she return young William to his father. Sad circumstances, societal prejudice, government bureaucracy and misguided social policy destroys this small family.

Years later, there is a chance to make recompense, but will Liu Song and her son be able to survive after their reunion? That question is never answered and the reader is left to hang...and hope. Perhaps there will be a follow up novel that continues the story.

I wished Ford had knitted the strings of his story up with a more satisfying ending, but he did give his readers a good snapshot of Depression-era America, the beginnings of the movie culture that Hollywood cultivated, and the social and religious programs of the Progressive era that were misguided in their pompous practices that disregarded personal rights.

The Tea Rose - Jennifer Donnelly

A tale about a strong woman - Fiona Finnegan. She belongs to a tight-knit Irish family that eeks a living in the businesses that hug the Thames River, East London of the 1880's. Jack the Ripper is terrorizing the people of Whitechapel, the dock workers are trying to unionize, schools for the youngsters of the working class are few and far between, the women of the Finnegan family work long hours doing laundry for middle class families or working in a sweatshop warehouse at packing and labelling the tea that comes onto the wharves of the Thames. There is much business going on, but the poor don't seem to be able to drag themselves out of poverty. 

The one big dream Fiona has is to save money with her life-long love, Joe Bristow, so that they can marry and start a shop of their own. They long to be their own bosses and live a secure life tending a shop business. When Joe has the opportunity to move across London to Covent Garden and work at a green grocer's wholesale business, the couple agree that its for the best. But life changes and Joe and Fiona are broken apart by one stupid mistake that Joe makes and lives to regret. Fiona's family falls apart when her father is killed in a sudden accident at the docks. Things get far worse as time passes and Fiona begins to fade until one horrific coincidence rattles her so deeply that her sense of righteous indignation brings her back to fighting form.

Fiona gathers her remaining family and sets off to better herself. With a promise to exact revenge on those who ruined her family and her initial dreams, Fiona carves a new path for herself. The story takes a turn and becomes a tale of two countries ... the gritty world of the docks in London and the rough and tumble world of New York's immigrant neighborhoods. Fiona does make her way, but it's not without constant challenge and her own 'demons in the closet' that haunt her and threaten ruin. 

No spoilers here ... this is a novel packed with characters and situations that keep you reading. At times, it's utterly predictable, but the characters are plentiful and colorful. The action is fast-paced and the villians are just so hateful that one reads on just to make sure they get their reward. Fiona Finnegan is an extremely likeable character. Seeing her shed her poor Cockney identity and escape the horrors of Whitechapel and the grinding poverty of the labor class in Britain was enough to keep me reading.

I do love a good romantic tale and this one satisfies. Jennifer Donnelly doesn't shy away from dropping the names of the famous, placing her characters smack dab in the middle of big historical eras, and weaving her story tightly around famous events. I recently read her novel called Revolution and liked that one as well. The Tea Rose was a nice return to a newly discovered author. I'll be looking for her other books as well.

The Miniaturist - Jessie Burton

A tale of a marriage of convenience in 17th century Amsterdam that goes horribly wrong. A tale that tells of the way in which a young woman comes to terms with the domestic disaster that her husband's lifestyle and his family's secrets create.

The main character is a likeable young woman, Petronella, who is married off  by her widowed mother to a hugely successful merchant in Amsterdam. Nella has no real dowry, only an old and established family name that will not take her far when her father dies and leaves the family in sad financial straits. Being a good wife to her new husband is foremost in her mind, as she travels from rural Holland to the bustling neighborhood in the Golden Loop of Amsterdam. There, she is ensconced in a house on one of the main canals and left to her own devices. The house is governed by her husband's cold and autocratic sister, Marin. When Johannes Brandt, her new husband, abandons her for his work, his favorite dogs, and his constant  business socializing, Nella is left to wonder when her marriage will be consummated, when she can expect to take the reins of the household, when she will know love, when she will become a mother, when she might just begin to take some control over her life.

Increasingly unhappy and confused by Johannes' strange behavior, Nella decides to approach him, to make sexual overtures, to fulfill her Christian duty as a wife, but she is rebuffed. To make up for his neglect Johannes delivers a gift of a large cabinet 'dollhouse' that is an exact replica of the Amsterdam house in which Nella and Johannes live. It is empty until Nella writes a note to a miniaturist, asking for the first small items to feather this nest.

As Nella comes to know the members of her household and as the miniaturist begins sending small packets for Nella's cabinet, Nella becomes sure that the miniaturist is guiding her gently on her voyage into Amsterdam society and into the secrets of her strange and unsettling new life. Things are not what they seem. The entanglements of Marin and Johannes lead to tragedy and Nella is left to pick up the pieces and use every ounce of survival skill to navigate the strict social circles that she has been forced to join in Amsterdam's competitive merchant class.

This was such an interesting book, but it was very dark and almost Gothic in its atmosphere. Poor Nella lives in a house of closed curtains, rooms with chill fires, whispered conversations behind closed doors, late night assignations, shadows at hall corners and the sense of always being watched and judged. The oppression is palpable, but the sense of relief is liberating when in the end, nella does take charge of her destiny.

Jessie Burton must have lived in Amsterdam for a good while, as she captures the bustle of the city perfectly. The landmarks around which she places her characters are beautifully described and the 'air of the city' is made real in her written description. I love it when that happens, as I'm reading good historical fiction. And this is good historical fiction ...

I highly recommend this book ... it's a page turner that will keep you up late!

City of Glory - Beverly Swerling

The second in the City of Dreams series by Beverly Swerling is a tale of cross/double cross in trading and politics. The story begins with Dr Joyful Turner, a gifted surgeon and doctor, coming to the aid of a young woman in the Chelsea night. As she is accosted by toughs with the idea of molestation on their minds, Turner grabs her from their clutches and sets her up in business in a 'better neighborhood'. We next find Turner on the deck of the US flagship Lawrence on Lake Erie, fighting British warships under Commodore Perry in the War of 1812. While arranging for the exodus of patients from the sinking ship, Turner's hand is blown off by a British cannonball. So ends his esteemed surgical career.

Turner returns to his native New York City to try to rally and make a new life. He becomes embroiled in the treasonous plot of a group of businessmen and some of the working class trade groups to secede from the nation and re-group to form a new nation that would bypass the touchy political friction between the United States and Britain. Turner rubs shoulders with Jacob Astor, the fur trading and shipping tycoon, even as he wrests control of Devrey Shipping from his treasonous uncle. His plan is to build trade connections in the Orient and commission a fleet of trading ships. His plan is to make money - lots of money. The Britsh embargo ships stand between him and a chance of success, but he's a patriot and there are things he must do to ensure an honorable success and continuance of the nation he loves.

Honor and love ...  He must succeed for honor, but also for love, as there is a young woman that he is courting and who just might marry another before he can gainfully support her. Love of nation and love of a woman make Joyful Turner move heaven and Earth to negotiate the wrangle of politics and business in 19th century Manhattan.

So that's the nutshell of the set-up for this novel. There are plenty more twists and turns in this fast-paced story of the turning of the nation's fortunes during the time leading up to the burning of Washington DC and the Battle of Baltimore, the Federalist plot to secede and garner a separate peace with Britain, the burgeoning clipper ship trade between the US and Asia, and the role of New York's big business movers and shakers in the politics of the era.

Beverly Swerling does an incredible job of making a dramatic era even more exciting by pulling colorful characters into her story line and weaving their histories and actions together masterfully. Yes, there is passion, romance, derring-do, strong-arming and histrionics, but she keeps good control and never lets the book go too far toward the romance genre. This is good historical fiction that can appeal to both the history buff and the romantic in all of us.

The next book in the series is called City of Glory. Stay tuned or let me know what you think if you beat me to the punch on posting a reaction. I am personally loving Beverly Swerling's series !

The Telling - Jo Baker

I love  it when I find a new author, of whom I know nothing. I love it even more when that author has a body of work that I can jump right into. Jo Baker's work was unkown to me until I came upon her novel called Longbourn. Placing the story at the Pemberly estate and wrapping the characters of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice into a different spin was the perfect tease for me. I do love my Jane Austen, you see. But wait! This Jo Baker has written other things!

The Museum of Extraordinary Things - Alice Hoffman

I love this book, but I love just about everything that I've read by Alice Hoffman. She has such a wonderful way of building these magical worlds in which she places her characters. In this book, it's the gritty world of turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. This is a place of hard working immigrant factory workers who grind out an existence in the sweatshops of Manhattan and then spend their bits of free time escaping to the seaside attractions of Brooklyn's Coney Island. What makes it 'otherworldy' is that she places us smack dab in the center of this odd little museum of curiosities. One can practically hear the carnie music from Coney Island in the background, as we move with Coralie through the rooms of her home, watching the odd cast of characters that her father has hired to house the Museum of Extraordinary Things. Her father's odd assortment of natural wonders, geological artifacts,  and freakish live specimens feed the public's ghoulish hunger for leering at the deformed and different. For a while, the museum is a success and life for Coralie is comfortable and sheltered.

As Coralie grows older, though, her father's fortunes are slipping lower in status, she learns more and more of his dark side and willingness to compromise her, his own daughter, in order to survive in the business of side-show entertainment. The area along the seashore is being developed and larger, glitzier attractions are being promoted. Coralie's father is faced with finding more extravagant and outlandish acts to draw the public and Coralie becomes fodder for her father's warped imagination. She is pressed into service as 'the living mermaid' in the large water tank at the museum and when that act becomes 'old' is forced to swim about naked to satisfy leering gawkers' prurient urges, safe behind glass, but violated, nonetheless. In rebellion, she comes into her own, growing more emotionally independent and hungry for a true human connection in the world away from the museum and her forced life of exhibition. Her dream life becomes so active and vivid that it contributes to the eerie atmosphere that Hoffman creates around Coralie's bizarre existence.

Running parallel to the life of the girl in the Museum of Extraordinary Things is the story of Ezekial, a young Orthodox Jewish boy, who grows away from his immigrant father. Factory work is just too mind and body-numbing for young Ezekial. He turns his back on his Jewish life and his father and runs the streets of Manhattan. He finds different ways to survive and eke out a living,  first acting as the eyes and ears for a well-known Jewish shyster. When Ezekial comes across a photographer along the waterfront in Brooklyn, he becomes so enamored of the camera work being done by the artist that he follows him around until he is allowed to apprentice. Learning the art of photography opens new doors for Ezekial and he becomes a photography stringer for the local papers, providing news photos of all the grittiest of happenings in the city.

The worlds of Coralie and Ezekial spin closer and closer throughout the novel, and one waits for them to collide, as they will be so very good for each other ... but how will they finally meet and come together? Sigh ... it is a challenge not to throw the rest of the day aside to race toward the end of the story, but I am enjoying the magic of the setting so much that I won't do that. Instead, I'll savor this story a couple chapters at a time and pray that these two poor souls will meet and save each other from miserable and lonely lives. For all the grit and seediness in the lives of these two protagonists, there is a conscious search for truth and beauty and love that they both hope for and dream of - and as a reader, I am rooting for them all the way.

Thanks, Alice Hoffman for another wonderful novel!

Lionheart - Sharon Kay Penman

Sharon Kay Penman is a giant in  the world of historical fiction. She is extremely prolific, having published thirteen books since her debut novel, The Sunne In Splendour in 1982. She is known for the detail of her research and the close attention to historic and character details that have been documented, as she develops her plots and introduces and develops the characters in her novels.

I became a fan when I read her Welsh Trilogy, a detailed story of the Welsh princes that tried in vain to keep Welsh autonomy at a time when the English King Henry III was trying to bring all of Wales under the control of England. I was struck by Penman's ability to weave engaging stories from the bare bones of historic fact about conquests, political maneuverings, and battles and political intrigue. She kept to historic fact while introducing life events that made characters more real, more human, and less iconic.

So, here I am at the end of the summer, wrapped up in the story of Richard the Lionhearted's crusade to save the Holy City from the infidels in the third crusade. It's all rough and tumble medieval warfare, political wrangling, and just a wee bit of romance, as Richard stops in Sicily to wait for his mother to deliver him a Spanish noblewoman , Berenguela of Navarre, who became his bride and queen. The political shenanigans that occur between the French King Phillip II (a Capet) and Richard, the various 'kings' of the islands of Sicily, Cyprus, and city-states in the Middle East (Acre, Jaffa, and Tyre), the Muslim emirs and sultans, and the various lords and noblemen within Richard's traveling army and court keep any reader of Penman constantly on their toes. I happen to love figuring out all the connections and familial and political ties. Others may feel there are too many mental gymnastics involved.

If, however, the medieval period is your cup of tea, I can heartily recommend Penman for her high quality stories! I know that when I finish Lionheart, I'll be champing at the bit to carry on with the saga of Richard's later life in her latest novel, A King's Ransom. It takes up Richard's life when he is captured and held ransom in Germany while on his way back from the Crusades, his later life with Berenguela, and his feuding with John, his infamous brother.

Oh, the life of the royals!

Citadel - Kate Mosse

Another exploration of the Christian and Cathar religious writings, the suppression of the burgeoning Cathar religious sect, and the archeological zeal with which their legendary hidden texts are sought form the basis for this latest novel by Kate Mosse. This time, the action revolves around the political division within France during WWII. The Vichy alignment with Nazi German invaders and the French Free Forces that were lead by DeGaulle and the partisan freedom fighters/resisters were in direct opposition. The people of the Languedoc region of France were equally divided. Informers for the Vichy /Nazi live side by side with those who support freedom from Nazi occupation. French Free Forces sympathizers form partisan resistance groups who help Jews escape Nazi arrest by leading them over the Pyrenees and into Spain or to the harbors along the southern French coast for escape by sea. Into this political quagmire, Nazi and Vichy political leaders push their way looking for supposed archaeological evidence of an Aryan race that is woven into the history of the early Cathar religious writings. They seek fragments of written Cathar texts hidden when Pope Innocent III declared a Catholic crusade against the sect and tried to wipe them out and establish conversion of the local peoples of the Languedoc. Other local historians look for the same religious relics to safeguard them from exploitation by Nazi forces and draw hope from a legendary 'ghost army' that will rise to help defeat the invaders and allow the Free French movement to retake control over France.

This is an involved novel. There are multiple stories going on here. A romance between a partisan fighter named Raoul and a young French woman named Sandrine. They meet when she finds one of his cohorts drowning in the local river, after escaping a horrid interrogation by local henchmen of the Vichy government. What did she witness? What did the poor man say to her before he was recaptured and murdered? What does Raoul know about the odd packet  found in his friend's apartment? Why does the local occupation force want that packet?

On another plane within the novel comes the story of a young monk from the 3rd century Lugdunum (Lyons) who is fleeing south through France with a sacred Christian text that he must keep safe and hide within the southern mountain caves. What is this text? Where does he hide it? Why must he be so secretive? These are the texts sought by the 20th century Germans and French. Who will find the texts and to what use will they be put?

The concept of time travel and reincarnation comes into play here too. Are Madeleine and Raoul and Baillard reincarnated Cathars who have come back to finish a sacred fight for freedom that has become wrapped up in World War II politics?

This is a good read,if you are a fan of archaeology, history, ancient religious myth and legend, and adventure.
I have read all of Kate Mosse's other novels, so it was a natural for me to grab this one. I enjoy her way  of weaving the past legends of the Languedoc region of France into the documented history of the place. I understand that her novel, Labyrinth has been made into a television mini-series. The characters of that novel appear in this latest novel (no spoilers) when Sandrine acknowledges that her dreams hold a powerful message to the French citizens in the resistance.

I'm a sucker for folklore, religious intrigue, and the history of the Languedoc region ... feel the same? This would be a great  vacation read.

Clara and Mr. Tiffany - Susan Vreeland

The next time you see a Tiffany lampshade or a mosaic design from Tiffany glassworks or the more ornate stained glass windows made by Louis Comfort Tiffany's glass design studios, think of Clara Driscoll and the host of women who worked in a closed department in turn of the century New York City. Tiffany was a creative force with deep pockets who strived to bring beauty and nature together through his glass studios. He encouraged creativity without worry about cost when his staff designed the glass windows, mosaics, and finally lampshades, boxes, and smaller interior design items. It was his undoing, as his cost overruns were notorious for pieces that were often times one of a kind items that required high price tags. The rich and forward thinking purchased, but for a good while, the growing middle class of the industrial America of the Gilded Age couldn't afford such extravagance.

Susan Vreeland has written an edifying book about this era of history, when art and nature were blended and brought to the American consumer. Louis Comfort Tiffany hired a large team of female artists that had been trained in art schools and craft programs throughout the US. As some of them came to New York, looking for work, he saw a need for 'a female touch' within his glass studios. He believed that women had a keener  and more nuanced eye for color selection and color blending in the intricate windows that his studio was producing, hence a career opportunity opened for these women. This was important, as most female jobs revolved around secretarial work, teaching, and helping professions (nursing, cleaning, cooking). Branching into the arts and artisan work was a real step forward.  Some women came into the glass studios as glass cutters, but advanced, as they developed an artistic feel for the images and the design process

Enter Clara Driscoll, a trained artist from the Midwest. Clara is a 'modern woman'. She is widowed when the story begins and has returned to Tiffany's studios to ask for her glass cutting job back, as she'd been required to resign when she married. The book follows her life, as she makes the adjustment to living in a boarding house with other artists and 'free thinkers' who encourage each others' creative ventures. She struggles with the double standard that allows male workers to marry, but forces female workers to remain single (or hide their personal relationships). She struggles with Tiffany's practice of taking the creative ideas of workers and not acknowledging their source or crediting the workers on the glass creations.

Clara was an extremely loyal employee and over the years, advanced to head the women's design and production studio. Her hunger for artistic release and talent for glass design kept her focused on her career. In Vreeland's book, we see her have semi-successful relationships with men that fizzle for various reasons (no spoilers, here), knock heads with male managers, bring along other young women who she brings to the studios for employment, and finally, come to terms with her business relationship with Louis C. Tiffany and his board of managers. Along the way, Vreeland uses Clara and her girls to teach the reader a lot about the intricacies of stained glass production and design.

Many of the windows and lamps written into the story are actual pieces that you can see in museums and collections world-wide by searching on-line. The work done by Clara and her Tiffany girls was stunningly beautiful and the story that tells us about these young artists is eye-opening. They blazed the way for women in manufacturing to rise above 'mill girl' status - important,  at a time of burgeoning women's rights issues and union/labor organizing.

Being an art fiend, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Others might be bogged down a bit by the passages that concentrate on the intricacies of glass design and glass cutting technique, but I was fascinated. Clara's life story was discreetly told and not overly romanticized, which was a positive for me, as I was more intrigued with the history of the story, the actual glass pieces and windows produced and how they fit into historical events of the Gilded Age.

The Lady and the Unicorn - Tracy Chevalier

I've read every book that Tracy Chevalier has written and have been rarely disappointed. This telling of the making of the Brussels tapestries by the family of Georges de La Chapelle, master lissier (weaver) is a fast-paced story of the production of the first 'unicorn tapestries' that became fashionable at the end of the 15th century.

The novel revolves around the production of a series of tapestries that tell the tale of the seduction of a unicorn by a noblewoman. Magical and elusive, the woman uses her wiles to appeal to the senses of the unicorn to draw him ever closer to her, to lure his trust and adoration until she can capture him by grasping onto his horn. Of course, the symbolism can be debated. Is this a story of sexual politics or is this a story of a more spiritual nature? Chevalier weaves both aspects of theory into her story.

The House of Velvet and Fog - Katherine Howe

Who doesn't have a morbid interest in the Titanic and all the drama surrounding its construction and fated maiden voyage? If you can honestly say that you are disinterested, I will tell you that I'm skeptical of your insistence. That being said, I will say that Katherine Howe's second novel didn't quite measure up to her first, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. Perhaps that's because the other historic event that grabs me by the throat and whips me to attention is the era and mania of the Salem Witch trials. I mean, really, could a novelist choose any two more spectacular events around which to build novels? Well, yeah ... there's the Holocaust and the birth of the Christian church, the Russian Revolution and  the Reign of Terror, and, and, and ... but, you have to admit, Katherine latched onto a couple of doozies when she penned her first novels. To boot, I'm a Yankee and lived for years within spitting distance of Salem/Danvers, where all the Salem witch drama unfolded. But that's a different story ...

So, okay. The good thing about both novels is that they are based in geographic area that I know and love. The House of Velvet and Fog takes place in Boston and is told in flashback fashion. Fast track plot without spoilers ... matriarch and favored daughter of rich Brahmin family goes down on the the Titanic. Elder daughter and wayward younger brother are left with father in the dark, brooding Beacon Hill residence to pick up the pieces and proceed in Boston society. But wait! Matriarch mother was deep into Spiritualism and elder daughter picks up the interest and tries to connect and settle her grief by 'seeing' those last moments on the ship ... and she succeeds... to a certain degree. Yes, there's a ship, and yes, there's fog and opulence, but why can't she see her mother and sister? What's going on here? Enter an ex-suitor, enter a tawdry but lovable actress, enter connections to Harvard and MIT social scientists interested in psychological research, enter WWI, enter flashbacks to father's past in the shipping trade to Asia and you have the ingredients for a layered story of a family's hidden secret. Oh yeah, and enter the widespread use of opiates in medicine before all the negatives were known.

Yup, it's a page-turner, but it's still not as good as her debut novel. Maybe that's because I still am more fascinated by the era of the Salem Witch Trials. Oh well,  it was STILL a good read.

A Place of Greater Safety - Hilary Mantel

Three young men come together at a Catholic school in the years prior to the French Revolution. They come from different classes of society, have vastly different personalities, and end up travelling different life paths that criss-cross during the turbulent years leading up to the dissolution of the French economy, the famine among the French commoners, destruction of the French monarchy, the rise of political factions that wrench a republic from the blood soaked ruins of French society. If you can keep the political comings and goings of the characters straight, you'll have won half the battle with this book. It's an enthralling read, but I am infinitely grateful for the 'Cast of Characters' printed at the beginning of the book!

Hilary Mantel has taken the lives of Maximilien Robespierre, Georges-Jacques Danton, and Camille Desmoulins and woven a tale that leads the reader through the tangled and corrupt society of the French nobility, the grasping class of public servants, the rough and tumble street life of Paris, and the bourgeois life of rural France that rises to become a political force to be reckoned with during the years leading up to the French Revolution.

As in a Shakespearean play, it becomes evident for those unfamiliar with these three historical figures that they will meet a sad ending ... the guillotine was, indeed, a sad mistress. What's really scary, though, is contemplating the social force that was behind this historic revolution. I was reminded of a tsunami when I thought about the public fervor that careened out of control during this era. Scary times. Desperate times.

If you are interested in historical fiction, this is a good read ... I think it's challenging, but highly satisfying. I did, though, have to do extensive Internet research/reading to keep on top of the political developments during the late 1700's in France.

The Light in the Ruins - Chris Bohjalian

Bohjalian's latest book revisits World War II and the aftermath of its toll on the Italian citizenry. The story begins with the noble Rosati family, living in rural seclusion during the final days of WWII on their Tuscan estate. The attention of the Germans is drawn to the estate because of an archaeological site discovered years earlier by the family. A burial chamber with lovely wall murals and the vestiges of the burial biers and sarcophagi. Looking to form hard connections between the early Etruscans and Aryan bloodlines, the Germans come to look over the site and perhaps confiscate artifacts. In the process, members of the German search team become connected to the Rosati family. This puts the Rosatis in a difficult situation, as the Tuscan hills are full of partisans who are fighting against the Reich and the Fascist government of Mussolini. The locals and partisans may look at the family as betrayers of Italian freedom.

Fast forward ten years to Florence. One of the Rosati women is brutally murdered and butchered in her small city apartment. The homicide police called in to investigate the case are familiar with the family, as they were partisan fighters in Tuscany years earlier. In investigating the case, one of the investigators is 'taken back' to a particularly harrowing battle between the German/Fascist troops and the rebel fighters. Her scant memories, due to severe injury during the battle, become mixed up in her ability to investigate this murder.

So, two mysteries unfold. What has the Rosati family done to incur a wrath so intense that a family vendetta is being carried out against them and how will the young policewoman resolve her war memories and use them to solve a series of brutal crimes ?

I had to parcel out this book, as I wanted to enjoy a slow build to the climax of the story. The intermingling of past and  present in the telling of the story and the short italicized snippets in which we enter the mind of the murderer are really well done. Too fast a read, I think, would take away from the sinister stalking of the murderer, the slow and incremental building of memories within Investigator Bettini, and the slow exposure of the Rosati family's activities during the last months of the war.

I have loved every book that I've read by Chris Bohjalian. He has a terrific way of taking parallel stories and weaving them together seamlessly. Once again, he has delivered a great read.

Shadowbrook - Beverly Swerling

I've done it again - fallen done the rabbit hole of good historical fiction ! This time Beverly Swerling takes me deep into the frontier of colonial America from the Hudson Valley to the Ohio frontier, from the shores of Nova Scotia to the slave markets on Wall Street in New York City. All these scenes set the stage for the French and Indian War, in which Britain and France duked it out over the 'land rights' to North America and the Native Peoples played one side against the other in a last ditch attempt to save their own cultures.

Beverly Swerling writes an excellent book. Her research is excellent and her use of French and Native American language makes this book even more 'authentic'. The French and Indian War was such a complicated and richly woven period of intrigue. Not only was there great rivalry between European powers, but the native tribes were deep in competition for pushing tribal agendas on inter-tribal governance, territory disputes, policies on living with the European interlopers, and settling old scores with each other. To boot, the Catholic church had a toehold in the frontier lands because of the on-going attempts to convert the native peoples to Catholicism.  Swerling manages to build a rich cast of characters who take the reader in and out of all these various social and political scenes. In the process, she builds a story that places one smack dab in the middle of a turbulent and dangerous period of colonial history ... now, THAT'S my kind of book!

Central characters are a young Catholic woman bound for the Poor Sisters of St Clare's nunnery in Quebec. Nicole is torn between her attraction to young Quentin Hale, a legendary backwoodsman and her religious promise to give herself to Christ by taking her vows with the Poor Sisters. Hale's adopted brother Cormac Shea is a man who lives between two worlds. His mother is a native Potawatomi and his father is a colonial. She comes to the Hale Grant's estate, Shadowbook when Cormac is young and lives as Ephraim Hale's mistress. Shadowbrook sits in the vicinity of Lake George and the southern portion of the Adirondack Mountains, deep in the conflicted region where the French and Indian War would play out. Cormac and Quentin become 'brothers' over the years of growing up in these forests and travelling between the white colonial's world and the world of the native tribes. It is through their eyes that the story develops. Of course, Swerling has many other well-developed characters who come in and out of Cormac and Quentin's lives; they help build this complex tale. We always care deeply, though, how these two will weather the increasingly dangerous and bloody conflict that soon ignites the frontier between the French and British powers. What a read ...

I can hardly wait to see what I can find by this novelist after I finish a few other books on my 'to be read' list!

Antonio's Wife - Jacqueline DeJohn

A first time novelist pens a story with its roots firmly in the author's past - a story of immigration from Italy to the rough tenements of New York City, a story of arranged marriages, social norms so strict that the sins of the parents are firmly passed on to their innocent children, a story about different kinds of love. This sounds like an opera, yes? Well, there's opera all wrapped up in this complex tale too.

Jacqueline DeJohn has penned an emotional tale based on the mysterious details of her grandmother's passage to America from the hills above Naples. Her main character, Mina/Maria Grazia comes to America as a mail-order bride. Settled in the tenements and new to a marriage that she hoped would bring happiness and escape from her 'past life', Maria becomes a seamstress for an opera company in Manhattan. Her marriage deteriorates around her into a frightening and abusive calamity and she pins her hopes on saving pennies from her pay to escape this second traumatic chapter of her young life. It is at this moment in life when Francesca Frascatti, a renowned Italian diva comes to the opera house to sing Tosca. This flamboyant singer needs a dresser and Mina is given the job. The story line takes a dramatic and operatic turn at this point and never stops careening toward a passionate, murderous, emotional, and yes, operatic, finish.

This novel, while dramatic and over-the-top coincidental, meshes together the characters, details of the history of New York City geography, famous names from the early 1900's, and the general themes of ethnic discrimination, immigration, the development of 'the Black Hand' aka Mafia, issues of women's rights, the history and development of opera as entertainment in America, the politics of Tammany Hall, and the development of crime investigation techniques. It's full to brimming ... like a good opera with an ending that takes a great deal of finagling to reach ... like a good opera.

City of Dreams - Beverly Swerling

I love it when I discover a new author, one that I know I will enjoy, one that will make me search out all the published titles, and hang on, waiting for new works. Beverly Swerling is my newest find. It's not like she hasn't been around for a while. Her first novel appeared back in 2001 ... and what a place to start!

The settlement of New Amsterdam was a commercial venture right from the start and with commerce came the wealthy looking to become more wealthy, the adventurers who would explore the new ways of life , the moral and the amoral, the poor looking to better themselves, and all stripes in between. Swerling writes a novel that brings the reader to New Amsterdam through the experiences of Lucas Turner and his sister, Sally. Lucas is a barber and surgeon newly arrived from Rotterdam, Sally is his apothecary assistant. Together, the two hope to make their way in the New World, where the need for competent surgeons is constant.

Lucas and Sally reflect the beginnings of a move within medicine - a time when herbs and simples were becoming better understood, when the concepts of blood transfusion, the practice of sterilization of instruments and bandages was becoming known, but still little understood, when anatomy was still a mystery to some physicians, but slowly becoming known to surgeons, when there was a great deal of consternation about new practices that might be considered unnatural, evil, and even smacking of witchcraft. Lucas and Sally fight ignorance and share their skills in order to make a living. The story follows their settlement and subsequent marriages before turning to their progeny and the further development of the city, as it becomes a colony of the British and is re-named New York ... and so it goes. The book is written in sections labelled Book I, II, III, etc. that cut across the years between 1664 and 1798. Each era deals with members of the Turner or Van der Vries (Sally's married name) families, the further development of the medical field through their experiences, and the development of New York City and the colonial expansion of Manhattan and the environs.

Swerling has done an incredible job of researching and developing her story - rather, stories. It's a saga ... and a good one, indeed. At no time does she compromise the good story to become too didactic about the history and vice versa. The history is never compromised to build the story. She has gone on to write three more books in what has become known as her City of Dreams series. They bring the development of the city up through the Gilded Age and are all meticulously researched as well as having meaty fictional story lines set within the framework of the urban history.

I look forward to finding more of Swerling's books and am thinking of reading them in the order that she published, which means that the next book I'll dig around for will be her novel called Shadowbrook.

Live By Night - Dennis Lehane

He's not a gangster. He's an outlaw. So says Joe Coughlin at different times during conversations with his father, his friend Dion, his lover Gabriela, and in deep conversations with himself, but the reader knows differently. And finally, so does Joe ...

Set against the backdrop of Boston and the Gulf Coast of Florida during the prohibition years, Lehane's most recent novel spins a tale of the youngest son of a Boston cop who has been lost and trying to prove himself since he was a child living in his brother's shadows and craving his mother's love and attention and his father's acknowledgment. Under those pressures, he comes up the loser and instead straggles to the streets and the company of neighborhood toughs. Neighborhood toughs that become his cadre and soon his way of finding a way up and away from anonymity.

Too bad that the recognition he gets leads him to bleeding in an alley, being abandoned to prison by friends and father, losing a lover, being pressed into service by mob leaders and challenged by other mob leaders, gradually facing the fact the he ... is ... a ... gangster.

The question that simmers in the reader of this latest Lehane page-turner is, "Can he be redeemed?"  There are other questions too ... What price will a man's soul pay to prove himself ?  Is revenge ever worth the plotting and execution? Is heaven really here on Earth and have we really blown it? Can a life of crime ever be abandoned for a life of benign goodness or will past crimes always be visited on us? What about friendship and trust between criminal rogues - is it really possible?

Excellent and fast read, Dennis. Keep crankin' em out!