A Noble Cunning : The Countess and the Tower

A Noble Cunning: The Countess and the Tower by Patricia Bernstein 266 pages

“Based on a true story of Winifred Maxwell, a Catholic in Anti-Catholic England.”

As the novel opens, Bethan Glentaggart, Countess of Clarencefield, is pulled from her bed by loud banging on the front door.  A group of men barge in, accusing her of hiding a Catholic priest in her home. The men search high and low yet cannot find their quarry. I found myself holding my breath as the men tracked in mud and snow, peering into private places and generally making a mess of things. Luckily Bethan’s husband, Gavin, was not at home and unluckily her children and servants were home in their beds.  I really liked that Bernstein dropped the reader into the middle of the action.

In the following chapters, readers learn that is 1710 in Scotland. The Catholic religion has been banned, yet those who were practicing their religion continued to do so, hiding chapels in their homes and attending masses often held in unusual places.

I was really confused as Bernstein explained who was king, who should have been king, and what was happening and who sided with who. It made my head spin, and I wanted to give up, but I trudged ahead. I’m glad I did.

Gavin gathered the men of the region to go a Crusade-like mission to restore the rightful king. Unfortunately, the king’s men were better equipped and outnumbered Gavin’s throng. If the rebels weren’t killed in battle, they were taken to the London Tower.

Jails weren’t like they are today. The men had to purchase their meals, water, blankets, and everything they needed. If a prisoner had no money, they often died of malnutrition or lack of sanitary conditions. An eye-opening experience for this reader.

The last third of the book was Bethan’s determination to get the monies Gavin needed to purchase fresh foods.

As I watched Bethan take charge, I admired her strength and determination. Many times, I found myself holding my breath, worried that Bethan would not be able to succeed in her mission.

My suggestion to anyone who plans (and you should) read this, study Appendix B first. It’s a Chart of Stuarts and Possible Heirs to the Throne of Great Britain. If I had found that sooner, I probably wouldn’t not have struggled so much early in the story.

I enjoyed reading “A Noble Cunning: The Countess and the Tower,” even though this is not preferred time period or setting. I loved the history and the escapades that the characters found themselves embroiled in. “A Noble Cunning: The Countess and the Tower,” receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

 

Ever Faithful

 

Ever Faithful by Karen Barnett      352 pages

 Former park ranger Karen Barnett has given historical fiction readers a wonderful series in her stand-alone novels set in America’s National Parks. Almost like a Ken Burns for readers! We get the history, the beauty and wonderful tales about characters that feel oh so real.

In this, her third novel, she takes us to Yellowstone National Park in 1933. The Great Depression has hit America hard, and the National Parks are no exception. Visitors to the park are few, causing the management not to open certain lodgings and other services. It’s almost a double whammy to park employees.

The protagonist is a young adult, Elsie Brookes, who has grown up in the parks. She desperately wants to go to college and become a teacher. She has been working as maid in the park’s hotels, but after four years, she still hasn’t saved enough. 

I chuckled at the nicknames the park’s employees gave to position, terms like pillow pushers, savages, pack rats, gear jammers, etc.  And I like the way Barnett let the reader know what each nickname represented without overtly doing so.

Poor Elsie. She is facing another summer with little hope of saving enough money for college. However, FDR’s New Deal comes to the rescue without officials realizing it. The year is 1933 and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) is sending a group of men to help work in the park, looking for bug-infested copses, culling trees and all around manual labor. For most, this is the first time they have ever seen this much wilderness. Elsie is offered a second job as a teacher to the men who are coming, and she jumps at the opportunity.

Enter Nate Webber. The Brooklyn-ite shows promise. He is a hard worker and a born leader. But he has a secret that he will protect at all costs. When Elsie uncovers that secret, she vows to do everything she can to protect that secret, it makes for some dynamite reading. 

I give “Ever Faithful” 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

A Silken Thread

A Silken Thread by Kim Vogel Sawyer   352 pages

I loved Kim Vogel Sawyer’s “Bringing Maggie Home,” and I jumped at the chance to review her latest book, “A Silken Thread.” This historical novel takes place in Atlanta and during the Atlanta Cotton Exposition of 1895.

When the story opens, eighteen-year-old Laurel Millard has a surprise visit from her six older siblings. They are concerned about their sixty-year-old mother. They feel that Laurel must give up her dreams of a husband, a home and a family to take care of Mama in her dotage. I admit that I laughed out loud at that. Sixty isn’t old, well by today’s standards. But in the late nineteenth century, that was considered elderly. Still it was a great laugh.

Laurel, wanting to please her much older siblings, stunned by their demand, neither agrees nor disagrees, but below the surface she fumes. How dare they ask her to abandon her dream! Although, she is recovering from a broken heart, she understands that she can still find a man. Oh that sound so quaint, but that’s the way it was back then.

Laurel and her mother don’t have a lot of money. Papa’s death didn’t leave then destitute, but they weave rugs and other items that they sell for extra income. Laurel changes her reasoning, feeling she must set her sights on a wealthy man, one who would be willing to take Mama into his household.

In order to meet these types of men, Laurel gets a job in the Silk Room at the Exposition. There she weaves the raw silk into cloth while her co-workers enlighten visitors with how silk is produced.

Across town, the wealthy Mr. and Mrs. Rochester give their son, Langdon, an ultimatum: find a wife or lose his inheritance. Langdon finds that special someone, someone who is pretty and obedient, when he spots Laurel on the fairgrounds.

An unlikely romance begins to take shape, until Laurel meets another man, one of the fair’s security guards, Willie Sharp. She and Willie become friends, but Langdon isn’t convinced. As the romance plays out, reads get to see various aspects of the Exposition, which are quite interesting and made me want to know about this event.

Against the backdrop of the Exposition, author Vogel Sawyer tackle racism in all its ugly forms. Willie’s best friend is Quincy, a hot-headed young African American man. 

I enjoyed this novel quite a bit. It seemed that dragged a bit in the middle. I felt as if the same scenes were being replayed over several times, in various ways.  Therefore,  “A Silken Thread” receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

 

 

Far Side of the Sea

Far Side of the Sea by Kate Breslin    384 pages

 

I always look forward to a new Kate Breslin novel. I can always depend on lots of intrigue with some romance and a dash of faith.  Her latest novel, “Far Side of the Sea,” doesn’t disappoint in those areas.

 

We last saw Lieutenant Colin Mabry at the end of her previous novel, “Not by Sight,” returning from WWI, injured physically and mentally. Suffering from what was then termed shell-shock (now it’s PTSD), Colin is haunted by the memories of being trapped underground after a tunnel collapse in which he loses a hand. He is the lone survivor.

 

Now he’s decoding messages for M18 in a small outpost outside London. The job is routine, but it’s what Colin needs right now. Then he decodes a message that leaves him breathless. A message from the woman he left behind, the woman he believed was dead, the woman whom he never told how he felt.

 

He travels to Paris to meet Jewel Reyer. But it’s not Jewel, but her half-sister, Johanna. Johanna is in search of Jewel and believes that she can lead her to their father, a man she has only met once. As Colin and Johanna work to find Jewel, sparks start to fly. Colin believes he loves Jewel, but as tensions rise, he must admit that he is not sure of how he really feels.

 

Everything that makes a great read is there, yet I found I was disappointed in the tale. While there is high adventure, I didn’t feel that there weren’t any unforeseen twists that took my breath away. And throughout the whole book, I felt like I was missing something. Maybe is that I really didn’t remember Colin from “Not by Sight.”  Therefore, “Far Side of the Sea” receives 3 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe

The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis              Hardcover: 189 pgs.             

Imagine being transported to another world when you open the door of a wardrobe!  That’s what happens to four English children in this classic juvenile fairy tale, set during World War II.

The title summarizes the book well.  The lion, Aslan, is the Christ-figure of the book.  It is he who saves Narnia, long oppressed by the witch.  He even rescues a traitor, one of the children from our world, though, as with Christ, it costs him his life.  It is by Aslan’s power that the children become kings and queens over Narnia.  The witch is the villain of the story, a cruel tyrant who has made Narnia into a kind of frozen wasteland— a place where it is always winter, but never Christmas.  The wardrobe is the means by which the children in the story get into Narnia from our world.  Narnia, after all, is in a different world and can only be found by entering the armoire (when the magic works, that is).  Though they’re not mentioned in the title, the children— Peter, Edmond, Susan and Lucy— are also important to the story.  Even Santa Claus (or Father Christmas, as he is known in the book) makes an appearance.

George Bernard Shaw comically observed that the British and Americans are separated by their common language.  Lewis was an Englishman, so Americans may find certain words and phrases of the “queen’s English” Lewis uses puzzling.  Those unfamiliar with mythology may have a harder time understanding Lewis’s description of such creatures as centaurs, fauns and satyrs.  Other than these difficulties, it reads easily, as one would expect from a juvenile book, and is a truly wonderful and meaningful story.  The sense of adventure and parallel to the Christian gospel make it one of my favorite books.  As a Christian, I find that it fleshes out, through the character of Aslan, the wisdom, mercy, majesty and greatness of God.  But, as I wrote when reviewing The Magician’s Nephew, you don’t have to be a Christian to appreciate this very well-written adventure story.  Thus, whatever your religion (or age), I highly recommend it!

The Magician’s Nephew

The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis           Hardcover: 202 pgs.             

     I opted for some light reading over the holiday weekend, so I read a few books from The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis.  The series may be classified as juvenile fiction, but it has much to teach adults, as well.  The Magician’s Nephew is the first book, chronologically, in the series, but it was actually the sixth book published (older editions list the books in the series in publishing order, while newer editions opt for the chronological order).  This isn’t a big problem for a reader new to The Chronicles— for the most part, this book stands on its own— but there are a few references to The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe (published before The Magician’s Nephew) that someone unfamiliar with the former book wouldn’t understand.

Whether you read this book first or sixth in order, it’s a quick read (as you would expect from a juvenile book) and a very engaging prequel to the series.  Lewis tells the fascinating story of how the land of Narnia was created, and how humans in our world discovered and began to rule over it.  Humans also corrupt it by introducing the evil witch that also appears in The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe; indeed, much of the book is about morality, as one might expect in a fairy tale.  What might be surprising for those unfamiliar with Narnia is that a talking lion, Aslan, is a central character.  Aslan is the creator of Narnia and the Christ-figure in the story— and indeed, in the whole series.  I’ve classified it as Christian literature, but no doubt non-Christians will also enjoy it, as its spirituality does not make it inaccessible to unbelievers.  There is a lot of action— in fact, the accidental adventures of Digory and Polly remind me a lot of similar ones in Star Wars: A New Hope and The Phantom Menace.

As this is one of my favorite books of all time, this classic work of fiction gets two thumbs way up from me!

Bringing Magge Home

Bringing Maggie Home  by Kim Vogel Sawyer    352 pages

Everyone has secrets, and secrets are the essence of this wonderful novel by bestselling Christian author, Kim Vogel Sawyer.  It has many of my favorite categories: dualing timelines, a cold case, a missing child, historical fiction and mystery.

The story begins in mid-July 1943 in a little town in Arkansas. Ten-year-old Hazel and her three-year-old sister, Maggie, have been sent to the blackberry bushes to pick the berries so their momma could make their daddy a blackberry cobbler for his birthday dinner. Hazel is distracted by a black snake that she saw headed in the general direction of a bunny burrow, complete with several baby bunnies. She runs after the snake, trying to change its direction, and when she gets back to the bushes, Maggie is gone. Without a trace. She is never found.

Maggie’s disappearance tears the family apart, and emotionally scars Hazel for life.

Fast forward to Las Vegas in 2013. Hazel lives there, a widow. Her only granddaughter, Meghan, is coming to visit for about six weeks, while she heals from injuries she suffered in a car accident. What neither Hazel nor Meghan, is that Meghan’s mother, Margaret Diane, also shows up on Hazel’s doorstep with her four dachshunds.

In alternating chapters, readers learn what makes each woman tick. Sometimes the identifiers of each woman are jarring. For example, when Margaret Diane is speaking, she refers to Hazel as Mother, while Meghan refers to Margaret Diane as Mom. But that doesn’t get in the way of a great story.

Meghan wants to create a scrapbook for her grandmother’s 80^th birthday, and it’s while they are gathering pictures that little Maggie’s is discovered and secrets are unearthed. It takes about half of the book for Meghan to realize that cold cases are her specialty. She then enlists the help of her partner to solve the riddle of Maggie’s disappearance.

Bringing Maggie Home  is highly readable and unputdownable.  I want to give it 6 stars, but the two flaws mentioned earlier are why it only gets 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world

I received this book from Blogging for Book in exchange for this review.

Sin of a Woman

Sin of a Woman by Kimerla Lawson Roby - Book 297 pages
This book is the latest in the Curtis Black Series. Raven is the (self-called) pastor of a megachurch in Mitchell, IL, where Pastor Black also lives, and her current success is not enough for her. She aims to make an even bigger name for herself and if she has to step on several people along the way, so be it. Porsha is associate minister at Raven's church and Raven thinks she's gotten too big for her britches. The story is about these 2 women who while both being unscrupulous, one decides to turn away from greed and lust and the other runs faster toward it. How will their choices affect their lives and the lives of those around them?

I enjoyed this book like I did all the Curtis Black books I've read. This book wasn't short on drama and I'm always glad when a book has a lot going on but not too much, because there is such a thing as too much. Most of the characters were engaging, but there was a lot of repetition in certain areas, such as what they would say to justify adultery or fornication, it was the same as I read in other books, that's not necessarily the author's fault, but I wish there would have been some originality there. I am a fan of Roby's dialogue, it never sounds bland or unrealistic, I can genuinely hear the characters saying, yelling or whispering those words to each other. All in all, Sin of a Woman makes me eager to read the next Curtis Black novel.