Earlier this summer, I read the latest doorstop in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlanderseries, Written in My Own Heart’s Blood. (Of course there’s a review).
Like many readers, I love the series. As soon as I started the story, I was instantly swept away, and it felt like no time at all since the last book, five long years ago. (It probably helps that the action picked up just where the last one left off.)
But the Outlander saga is intense. Bad things happen to so many people that we have come to love, and it can be heart-wrenching to see the characters in pain or especially danger. This is a story that wraps around your heart.
As much as I was enthralled by every single page, I was also torn. There is so much trauma. I had to put the book aside for a day to let the events sink in before I could return and finish the story.
So I was stuck in the book in the middle, and then again at the end, not wanting to leave “my friends” behind. Book hangovers are marvelous (and frustrating)
I’m giving away a gift card to the winner’s choice of Amazon or B&N, so that the winner can help themselves to one or two more books that they can get “Stuck In”!
Format read: ebook purchased from Amazon Formats available: ebook, mass market paperback, audiobook Genre: paranormal romance Series: Midnight Liaisons, #3 Length: 369 pages Publisher: Pocket Books Date Released: August 27, 2013 Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository
From the supernatural dating capital of the world, it’s the Midnight Liaisons Dating Game!
Let’s meet our eligible bachelors . . .
“Cold hands, warm heart” applies to Bachelor #1. He believes that nighttime is the right time. Welcome, Bert the vampire!
Bachelor #2 is an old soul—four hundred years old, to be exact. If you want someone to spend eternity with, choose Andre the vampire!
Dying to snuggle up with a strong, sexy were-cougar? Bachelor #3 is a real cat(ch) who will tail the woman of his dreams until his irresistible charm melts her heart. He’s Joshua Russell!
Who’s our lucky bachelorette?
Professional matchmaker Marie Bellavance has hooked up hundreds of were-things, harpies, faeries, and vamps. Now it’s her turn. This alluring human’s not afraid to break the rules. But when nature takes over, a forbidden romance could be her only chance to live a full, healthy life. If there’s a trick to getting turned, she needs to find it . . . fast.
My Review:
I picked this one up for pure fun. The whole concept of the supernatural dating agency was explored to marvelously snarky effect in Beauty Dates the Beast (reviewed here), and I keep following the series to see where it goes. The second book, Desperately Seeking Shapeshifter was still good, but didn’t quite match the sparkling banter of the first book. While there were story reasons why that happened, I missed the banter.
Midnight Liaisons is a dating agency for supernaturals. Since the shifters and the vamps haven’t come out of the coffin (or whatever) yet, everything about the agency is super secret. It was intended to be staffed by humans, but first the owner gets mated to a were-cougar, and her supposedly human sister turns out to secretly be a werewolf.
Marie-Pierre Bellavance may be human, but she’s a dying human, and no one knows about it. Marie suffers from Fatal Familial Insomnia, which really does exist, no matter how crazy it sounds. The short version is that the sufferer is incapable of sleeping, which eventually leads to panic attacks, hallucinations, dementia and death in just a couple of years. It’s also hereditary, but usually doesn’t strike until middle age, so Marie’s mother didn’t find out that she was a carrier until she herself was struck down, well into Marie’s teens.
Marie’s extreme anxiety seems to be bringing it on early, but Marie has a plan. She works at Midnight Liaisons, and it finally dawns on her that neither vampires nor shifters get diseases. All she has to do is convince one of the supes to turn her, and she’ll be cured.
Unfortunately, there’s a big scandal in the shifter community because some young idiot broke secrecy and turned his girlfriend against her will. Then he fell out of love with her, and she threatened to go to the newspapers. (As I said, he was a young idiot)
Marie starts secretly looking for a vampire. This is a problem. Vampires are secretive and dangerous, and Marie can’t afford to be picky. Even more troubling, Marie’s nemesis, the serial dater Josh Russell, keeps showing up at the agency and trying to get her to go out with him. Or treat him as anything other than an annoying brother. Or simply notice him in a positive way (other than checking out his gorgeous ass).
Josh is clearly panting after Marie for more than just possibly sex. No matter how much the two of them snark at each other, there’s real caring under the surface. So much real caring that when Marie finally confesses the reasons for her vampire pursuit, Josh helps her anyway. Even though the only thing he wants to do with Marie is take her for his mate.
And even though successfully turning her could result in a one-way exile to Greenland–for both of them. Josh has his work cut out for him to convince Marie to trust him; before she dies or is beyond his reach.
Escape Rating B-: This story felt like it had a slow middle. It starts out strong, with the sharp-tongued banter between Josh and Marie, but after Marie’s illness is revealed, it wallows in her increasing symptoms and incredibly desperate attempts to find someone to turn her a bit too long.
It isn’t obvious at the beginning that Josh really has a heart of gold under his playboy exterior. He dates tons of women, but only once. When he starts showing Marie that his playfulness hides a major white knight complex. the reader still ends up wondering about the hordes he’s run through on his way to true love. (I’d seriously doubt him too)
After Josh introduces Marie to just some of the people that he helps, most of them older women who enjoy his bad-boy charm, it’s still not 100% certain whether Josh is falling for her or just feels the need to save her, too. Some vamps are extremely shady characters, even (or especially) with each other. Marie definitely needs saving, or at least a bodyguard once she sets herself out as vampire bait.
In the last quarter of the book, when Josh has to rescue Marie from the inevitable vampire trap she falls into, the action moves fast and furious. Not just because they finally manage to admit that they love each other, but because Marie finally breaks the rules she should have all along, and then they have to deal with the messy fallout.
I see big changes for the shifter community on the horizon. I hope we have more fun along the way.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
In 2008, 250 Australian and British soldiers are uncovered in a mass grave in Fromelles, France, lost since the Great War. One soldier, bearing wounds of war so deep it scarred his soul, cannot be laid to rest just yet.
When Lucy bumps into the achingly sad soldier during a trip to France, she doesn’t, at first glance, realise what he is – a ghost who desperately needs her help. Lucy can’t turn away from someone who needs her, even someone non-corporeal, and they travel back together to Australia in search of answers and, hopefully, some peace.
This chance meeting and unexplainable relationship sets into motion a chain-reaction of delicate coincidences that affect the intertwined lives of family, friends, and lovers in unexpected, beautiful ways.
My Review:
Beyond Coincidence is a romance that requires that the reader throw their willing suspension of disbelief out the window, but the history behind the love story is based on actual events.
Let’s just say that the author has taken an extremely romantic perspective on a project that is both sad and moving, and uses the romance to personalize something important.
The genesis of everything lies in the Battle of Fromelles, which took place in France in World War I. Fromelles wasn’t merely a disaster for the Allies, it was also one of the most costly battles in history for the Australian Army. Over 5,500 men were killed in 24 hours of fighting.
In 2008, a mass grave was found near Fromelles, containing the unidentified bodies of 250 of those Australian losses. In the intervening years, a project has been mounted to identify those remains and create closure for the families.
Beyond Coincidence is a romanticized, in some ways paranormally romanticized, story about the identification of the remains of one particular soldier.
Lucy sees the ghost of a man, in a WWI Australian Army uniform, visiting the gravesite in Fromelles. At first, she thinks he’s a reenactor. When he keeps turning up, she decides he’s a stalker. It’s only when he materializes in her car that she finally starts accepting that he’s a ghost.
Freddy Ormon is one of the unidentified soldiers from the battle. He convinces Lucy that he won’t be able to rest until his grave is properly marked and his remains are identified. He has no idea how this is supposed to happen, just that it has to happen and that there is a greater plan that has chosen Lucy as the one to bring it about.
So Lucy sets out on a quest to find Freddy’s possible descendants. He knows that his wife was pregnant when he left Australia, so it is possible that there is a great-grandson or granddaughter back home. Lucy just has to find him, or her.
Lucy heads back home, and hunts down Nate Ormon, Freddy’s great-grandson. Both Lucy and Nate are at career and romantic loose-ends, so when Freddy serves as unintentional matchmaker, they click. Nate even looks like Freddy, which is not a hardship for Lucy. She’s quite fond of her “friendly ghost”.
In spite of some ham-fisted interference from Lucy’s suddenly violent ex, Nate and Lucy discover that they have a lot in common beyond Nate’s interfering ancestor. But they have some deep-seated fears that almost drive them apart.
The story ends with the promise of one of the sweetest but most surprising second-chances at love that I’ve read in quite a while.
Escape Rating B: Although this is Lucy and Nate’s love story, Freddy feels like the most memorable character in the book. He is so confused by what has happened to him, and so frustrated at his inability to act for himself.
His grief over the death of his wife is fresh and new. She lived decades without him, but he’s just now confronted with both her death and that of the child he never got to see. The world is so different from what he knew.
At the same time, his interactions with Lucy are quite funny. Not because he doesn’t know the 21st century, but the way he adapts surprises and dellights her. You can see them becoming friends, no matter how unusual that friendship might be.
There’s a sense that Freddy is Lucy’s guardian angel in some way. He looks out for her, and he’s also pushing her life into a different but better track than she would have found on her own. Lucy and Nate do not “meet cute” and without a push, she probably would never have seen him again.
Freddy, or someone above him, are also manipulating events for their own ends. “This has all happened before and it will all happen again” as they say. And the set up between Lucy and Nate does feel contrived. As much as I liked Freddy as a character, I had to swallow my logic in order to enjoy the story.
But I certainly did enjoy it quite a bit. It’s sweet and romantic, and I loved the history angle.
~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~
Jacquie is kindly giving a $30 gift card for Amazon! To enter, use the Rafflecopter below.
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
Format read: ebook provided by NetGalley Formats available: ebook Genre: contemporary romance Series: Dare to Love, #1 Length: 265 pages Publisher: Loveswept Date Released: September 16, 2014 Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo
After her one attempt at commitment ends in the worst kind of betrayal, Maggie Lawson vows that the only people she’ll love ’til death do they part will be her friends. Unfortunately that means Maggie letting her bestie rope her into a year-long dating dare: score a new date each month or pay a penalty. Seems doable—until Maggie’s date stands her up, leaving only one option: the sexy stud who just moved in upstairs. The problem? He and Maggie can’t stop fighting—and that’s just the beginning.
His name is Tyler Wells and the last thing he needs is his neighbor distracting him with her girl-next-door smile and sharp tongue. Tyler’s in Chicago for one reason: to woo back his selfish ex in order to reclaim the child he once thought was his—and that means keeping Maggie out of his bed. A tall order, since Maggie has become a bigger temptation than he ever expected to face. But before they can even consider leaving the past behind, Maggie and Tyler must accept a brand-new dare: real, forever love.
My Review:
Truth or Dare is a frenemies into lovers story that somewhat stretches the willing suspension of disbelief about why these two people try so hard to stay at the frenemies stage.
Maggie Lawson has given up on any commitment deeper than friendship, not that she isn’t deeply committed to her best friends. The reason that this 20-something has not just sworn off relationships, but refuses to even date? Her wedding was interrupted by her groom-to-be’s pregnant wife and children! And she never had a clue that he was in another relationship, let alone that she was the other woman!
The scandal of being branded a homewrecker all over her Florida town sent Maggie scurrying off to Chicago to create a new life with her besties, and without even thinking about searching for love. Ever.
Tyler Daniels moves from New York to Chicago, and into Maggie’s building, because he’s being noble and self-sacrificing and “being there” for his ex-girlfriend, no matter how lonely “there” happens to be.
It’s not because he loves her. He doesn’t. But he does love the little boy that she let him think was his; and then took away when her baby daddy dropped back into her life again. She wants Tyler’s secure finances, and the emotional security he represents, but she can’t seem to resist her bad-boy rocker ex whenever he comes around.
So Tyler is swearing off relationships in the hope that when his ex comes to her selfish senses, she’ll see him for the security he represents, and he’ll get back into the kid’s life. If he has to take her to get the child he loves, he believes it’s a fair trade–but he can’t let himself get involved with another woman, because his ex will take the child away forever. She’s allowed to have a life, but she has to come first in his, whether they are together or not.
So Tyler comes to Chicago, meets Maggie, and acts like a complete jerk. Admittedly, his life is pretty jerky at the time. But Maggie takes his jerkiness and does him one better, she snarks off at him every chance she gets–every time they meet in the hallway, every time they run into each other in the laundry, every single time.
But the way that they exchange one-liners and one upmanship hides the truth, that what they really want is each other. As her friends become his friends, and he becomes part of her inner circle, they find each other more and more difficult to resist. Until it’s too late.
The question is, what exactly is it too late for?
Escape Rating B-: I had a lot of mixed feelings about this story. On the one hand, I enjoyed Maggie’s relationship with her friends a lot. Not just because they are in a Chicago lakefront area that I even recognized, but because it’s so rare to see a mixed-gender bunch of friends that so clearly really love each other and have fun together, among adults, that doesn’t devolve into a whole bunch of messy soap opera relationships within the group.
The only UST (unresolved sexual tension) in this flock is between Maggie and Tyler, and it is, after all, the point of the story.
While I understood Maggie’s desire to swear off romantic relationships on a temporary basis, as a permanent thing I found it a bit much. Or it might be that the triggering event was over the top. Certainly the reasons for Maggie’s public shaming were soap opera worthy. And Tyler’s equally self-sacrificing reasons were also soap opera worthy. Together they equalled too much past my willing suspension of disbelief. Your mileage may vary.
Although I found their reasons for avoiding relationships to be too much, the romantic and sexual tension between them was off-the-pages hot. It was so obvious (in a good way) that these two belonged together, that every time they resisted the pull just fueled the incredibly hot fire. I wanted them to finally figure it out. The push-pull between them was tormenting (again, in a very good way)
So, I felt for the characters, enjoyed them together and with her/their friends, and couldn’t quite get over their unbelievable backstories.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
June, 1947. Charleston is poised to celebrate the biggest wedding in high-society history, the joining of two of the oldest families in the city. Except the bride is nowhere to be found…
Unlike the rest of the debs she grew up with, Vada Hadley doesn’t see marrying Justin McLeod as a blessing—she sees it as a life sentence. So when she finds herself one day away from a wedding she doesn’t want, she’s left with no choice but to run away from the future her parents have so carefully planned for her.
In Round O, South Carolina, Vada finds independence in the unexpected friendships she forms at the boarding house where she stays, and a quiet yet fulfilling courtship with the local diner owner, Frank Darling. For the first time in her life, she finally feels like she’s where she’s meant to be. But when her dear friend Darby hunts her down, needing help, Vada will have to confront the life she gave up—and decide where her heart truly belongs.
My Review:
Palmetto Moon is a sweet, gentle and slow-building story about a young woman who seizes her life with her own two hands, no matter what it will cost her.
Vada Hadley’s transformation from obedient society child takes both courage and time; she is a child of extreme privilege in 1947. A young Southern woman in the years after World War II, a time when women in general were supposed to give up their jobs and independence and return to subservience to the men in their lives.
Vada has returned from college at Radcliffe College (Harvard’s college for women) with the idea that she should have some say in her own life. When her wealthy parents arrange her marriage to a young man in their class who philanders now, and plans to go right on doing it after their marriage, Vada rebels.
She doesn’t love Justin, and isn’t willing to be the kind of obedient wife and social ornament that her mother has been. She wants more. It takes her almost all the time she has, until the night before her misbegotten wedding, to pluck up her courage and run.
There’s a teaching position waiting for her in the small town of Round O, if she can just get there. The parents of her heart, her parents’ servants Rosa Lee and Desmond, risk their own jobs to help her get away.
In the little town of Round O, she hides who she is. Vada just plain hides from her previous life and hopes that no one will find her or betray the secret that she refuses to tell. It’s difficult to put ourselves in her shoes; the status of women has changed a lot since those post-war years. It’s not just that her father will track her down and force her to marry Justin, but that he has the legal right to threaten Rosa Lee and Desmond with the loss of their jobs and the threat that he will make sure his friends never employ them either. As a black couple, they have no practical recourse, especially in the South.
So Vada hides, and her father sends agents out to find her. Meanwhile, Vada makes a life of her own, a life that she finds precious and an independence that is rewarding. She makes friends, and finally falls in love.
But her would-be lover doesn’t know her truth, and makes serious mistakes in trying to do the best for her, whether it is a best that she wants or not. Frank Darling loves Vada so much that he has a difficult time letting Vada make her own mistakes. And in his attempt to fix things, he unintentionally takes away some of her agency.
All the secrets come out in one nasty confrontation, when Vada’s father and her erstwhile fiance roll into Round O to show off their wealth and privilege, and to expose Frank’s good-intentioned attempts to manipulate Vada.
Not that they are not manipulating her as well, but as they both say, they’ve never lied about it.
Vada is faced with a horrible choice; to return to her life of privilege out of spite and fear, or to take up the life that she has made for herself in Round O, with Frank.
Escape Rating B: Palmetto Moon is a slowly unwinding story. It takes place in the sweltering heat of a Lowcountry summer, and meanders into Vada and Frank’s life just like the sticky heat that surrounds Round O.
Although Vada (and Frank) do find true love, the story feels like it is about Vada’s search for independence and self-determination. At first, she is running away, from her parents, from society’s expectations, and also from herself.
While there are practical reasons for Vada’s desire to keep her background secret, her embracing of that secrecy feels like another version of running away. She is over 21, and while it would be difficult for her to separate completely from her parents, she can if she is willing to pay the price in loss of money, status and privilege.
Vada’s life is more “real” in Round O, but it is also based on a lie of omission. It isn’t until all the secrets come out that she has a chance at determining her own destiny.
The example of the awful choices that face her new friend Claire serve to point out just what she is giving up. Claire is a very young war widow with three small children, and her life choices consist of living in a boarding house and taking in mending; marrying one of the old bachelor boarders who has a pension but is an asshole; or finding a job as a menial with three children in tow. All her choices initially suck. That she gets lucky in the end doesn’t take away the initial suckage.
The way that Vada takes her life into her own hands was the perfect ending to the story. Although Frank wants to rescue her from the consequences of her own (and his) bad choices, he simply doesn’t need to. Vada rescues herself; as she should.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
Karen Abbott illuminates one of the most fascinating yet little known aspects of the Civil War: the stories of four courageous women—a socialite, a farmgirl, an abolitionist, and a widow—who were spies.
After shooting a Union soldier in her front hall with a pocket pistol, Belle Boyd became a courier and spy for the Confederate army, using her charms to seduce men on both sides. Emma Edmonds cut off her hair and assumed the identity of a man to enlist as a Union private, witnessing the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. The beautiful widow, Rose O’Neale Greenhow, engaged in affairs with powerful Northern politicians to gather intelligence for the Confederacy, and used her young daughter to send information to Southern generals. Elizabeth Van Lew, a wealthy Richmond abolitionist, hid behind her proper Southern manners as she orchestrated a far-reaching espionage ring, right under the noses of suspicious rebel detectives.
Using a wealth of primary source material and interviews with the spies’ descendants, Abbott seamlessly weaves the adventures of these four heroines throughout the tumultuous years of the war. With a cast of real-life characters including Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, General Stonewall Jackson, detective Allan Pinkerton, Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, and Emperor Napoleon III, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy draws you into the war as these daring women lived it.
My Review:
“Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor” is the first line of a nursery rhyme that continues with “Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief.”
Ironically, both the corruption of the rhyme, “Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy” and “Rich man, poor man” have been turned into novels. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy being the well-known Cold War espionage thriller by John le Carré.
At the time of the U.S. Civil War, women weren’t supposed to be any of those things. But of course, women have often taken up occupations and professions that they were supposedly incapable or unqualified for.
So goes this historical account of four women who were not merely active, but in some cases famous (or infamous) for being spies, which necessitated them also being liars, temptresses and/or soldiers in order to fulfill their clandestine duties.
In this story, we see the Civil War through their eyes, and their documented records, instead of the usual historical accounts written by men. Two of these women operated for the Union, and two for the Confederacy. Everybody spied.
Elizabeth Van Lew was a Richmond abolitionist, but also a rich woman from a prominent family. She remained at her family home in Richmond throughout the War, spying assiduously for the Union. She often sent her dispatches north with escaped Union soldiers who she had helped free from the Richmond POW prisons. While her wartime services was recently fictionalized in The Spymistress (reviewed here) it is even more harrowing in this non-fictional version.
The picture of the war is also made much fuller by the account of Van Lew’s Confederate counterpart, Rose Greenhow. Greenhow was an ardent secessionist, but her family home was in Washington D.C. When the Union split, Rose saw her opportunity to use her knowledge of the insiders in Washington government to seduce and suborn as many high-ranking officials as possible, sending her dispatches south in the hands of young women and slaves. Her information was credited with helping the Confederacy win the first battle at Bull Run. Belle Boyd is possibly the most infamous spy in the Civil War, to the point where Cherie Priest co-opted her identity for use in her Boneshakerseries. But the real life Boyd was even more sensational than the fictional one. Boyd starts as a willful and completely uncooperative (and very young) woman in Martinsburg, Virginia. An ardent secessionist, she openly flirted and courted every Union officer who came within her orbit. Belle didn’t merely send dispatches, she also ran them herself. Martinsburg became part of the new state of West Virginia during the war, but she continued to spy on the Union.
Last, but not least, Sarah Emma Edmonds serviced from 1861 until 1863 as Frank Thompson. Not, as the romantic literature often has it, because she was following a sweetheart, but simply as a way to escape her overbearing father. Because of her slight stature and small frame, she was frequently asked to spy on nearby Confederate regiments while dressed as a woman. It was a double disguise; a woman, pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. It worked.
Their four stories interweave to form a fascinating narrative of the war. Emma tells the soldier’s story as she served at both battles of Bull Run, Antietam, Vicksburg and the Peninsula Campaign, some of the bloodiest battles of the war. Greenhow covers politics in Washington, and the Confederate campaign in Europe to achieve recognition. Both Boyd and Greenhow were imprisoned multiple times for treason to the Union, but their gender and their powerful friends protected them from execution.
Van Lew completes the picture; her insider’s guide to running a spy ring, and life in the Confederacy as the outlook changed from hope to despair.
In addition to their service, they all share surprisingly similar fates. The war turns out to have been each of their shining moments; their pinnacle of achievement. Greenhow did not survive, but the others all fell from places of high recognition to obscure deaths. Post-war life was not kind to any of them, whether they traded on their notoriety or tried to slip back into “normal” life.
Reality Rating B+: I preferred this account of Van Lew’s life to the fictional one; while the outline was the same, this one felt like it contained less melodrama. In fiction, she came across as slightly wooden, but in a more factual account her achievements shone through.
Although there is a popular image of female spies as femme fatales (i.e. Mata Hari) by showing four different women spies, we see the myriad possibilities that women had for espionage at a time when women’s roles were so prescribed. Boyd and Greenhow both acted the seductress; in fact, Boyd was referred to as the “Secesh Cleopatra” for her exploits. But Edmonds pretended to be a man, and was a successful soldier to the point that she was able to get her comrades in arms to testify sufficiently in her defense that she was awarded a military pension. Van Lew relied on her intelligence, and occasionally on family influence or downright smuggling, to get the information she needed. She acted the part of a Southern lady when required, but the emphasis would be on the “lady” part of that description.
Except for Greenhow, who died near the end of the war, the others all descended into obscurity. Both Boyd and Van Lew were considered crazy, to the point where Boyd ended in an asylum and Van Lew retreated into her house and her stories and seldom emerged.
While the use of the four women as points-of-view covered much of the action of the war on both the political and military fronts, it did occasionally jar as the perspective switched from one to another. Although the author’s technique of extrapolating what these women thought and felt made their narratives flow more smoothly, it did make me wonder whether the book veered a bit into fiction at those points. But it did make each of them come alive for the reader.
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
The word for today is sleepy. I couldn’t sleep last night, and it seems that I can do nothing but sleep this afternoon. Which probably means that I’ll be up half the night again, reading a (hopefully) good book.
Let me be slightly more specific…I got a couple of books that I’ve been waiting for; Dreaming Spies by Laurie R. King and Duck Duck Ghost by Rhys Ford. The wonderful thing about series is that you get to know the characters and setting. The cloud around that silver lining is that you can be on pins and needles for months waiting for the next book.
I also bought Life Reignited purely for the cover, which doesn’t happen often. I don’t know who the model was (and don’t want to know, it would spoil the fantasy) but whoever that is looks so much like a character from Final Fantasy X that I absolutely love. That cover made the book irresistible!
A young mortician goes behind the scenes, unafraid of the gruesome (and fascinating) details of her curious profession.
Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty—a twenty-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre—took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life’s work. Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both living and very dead), Caitlin learned to navigate the secretive culture of those who care for the deceased.
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters and unforgettable scenes. Caring for dead bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, Caitlin soon becomes an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. She describes how she swept ashes from the machines (and sometimes onto her clothes) and reveals the strange history of cremation and undertaking, marveling at bizarre and wonderful funeral practices from different cultures.
Her eye-opening, candid, and often hilarious story is like going on a journey with your bravest friend to the cemetery at midnight. She demystifies death, leading us behind the black curtain of her unique profession. And she answers questions you didn’t know you had: Can you catch a disease from a corpse? How many dead bodies can you fit in a Dodge van? What exactly does a flaming skull look like?
Honest and heartfelt, self-deprecating and ironic, Caitlin’s engaging style makes this otherwise taboo topic both approachable and engrossing. Now a licensed mortician with an alternative funeral practice, Caitlin argues that our fear of dying warps our culture and society, and she calls for better ways of dealing with death (and our dead).
My Review:
You would never expect that a book subtitled “and other stories from the crematory” would manage to be a quick, fun and sometimes even light-hearted read. But Caitlin Doughty’s personal coming of age story is exactly that, even though (she might say because) it also covers her introduction into the funeral industry.
This is a book about death. Not about the terribleness of it, because the author does not espouse the belief that death itself is awful. This is about the acceptance of the inevitability of death into our lives, injecting rationality into a process that is feared, hated, reviled and avoided at all costs.
Except we can’t avoid it in the end. The author’s thesis is that what we’re doing as a society is covering it up, turning something natural into something to be feared and hated. And that some of the lengths we go to in order to avoid even mentioning death and its inevitability.
If the mantra of Dr. Gregory House in the TV series was “Everybody Lies”, than I think it’s fair to say that Caitlin Doughty starts from the premise that “Everybody dies”. Which they do.
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes is both autobiographical and philosophical, as well as containing an extremely readable history of how humans have treated death over the centuries, particularly in Western culture but with some exploration of cultures outside of our own. She parses out the history amid her own story of her adoption into the modern funeral industry as well as her criticisms of it.
She starts out as a 23-year-old college graduate in Medieval Studies (more death, definitely more death) and a fascination with death that is not so much morbid as curious and engaged. She wants to be involved with the funeral industry because what happens to us after the inevitable event (dying) is something that has engrossed and sometimes terrified her since her 8-year-old self watched another child fall from the top of an escalator into silence. She never knew the fate of that other child, but the event, and the fears it generated, changed the direction of her life.
When she starts as a crematory worker, she starts out both deeply interested and slightly scared. We all know people die, but whatever happens behind the black curtain at a funeral home is mysterious to us. And it’s intended to be.
The author talks to us about her journey from crematory worker to mortician’s college to licensed funeral director, but she also details the actual processes that she undertakes behind the scenes.
As well as letting us see the gallows humor she shares with the staff who help her and train her. Her stories can be macabre, but they also bow to the inevitable, we all die. And it is better to face the unknown with knowledge than with fear.
Reality Rating A: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes was the number one pick of the Library Reads list for September 2014, and once you read it, it is easy to see why.
The author’s personal story fascinates, because she is letting us peek into something that we all must face, but that no one ever talks about. Dealing with final arrangements for a loved one (and what happens when there is no loved one) is something that we will all face and become part of in turn. Yet no one talks about it, except in the most oblique terms.
The history of funerals and death arrangements, and the history of the surrounding industry, is broken up into quite digestible bite-sized chunks. It flows very well into the personal story that the author tells, and she makes it easy to see how past practices and practices in other cultures have helped to inform her beliefs.
The people she works with, especially at her first crematory job, have a sense of gallows humor and fatalism that is every bit as funny, in its own way, as the “meatball surgeons” in MASH. No one in this story turns out to be deadpan, except the actual dead.
While her explanations of what happens to the unclaimed bodies, and the way that the scientific donations come to their final and fiery end have more than their share of pathos, this is information that people should have when they make their decisions.
Death is a serious topic, but the author provides a treatment of this usually avoided topic in a way that makes you think, not with fear, but with consideration about the way we will handle the inevitable when it comes.
Some of her conclusions about the long reach of the death-avoidance culture and how it can be changed, left me pondering. A lot.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
In May 2013, Glenn Greenwald set out for Hong Kong to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have astonishing evidence of pervasive government spying and insisted on communicating only through heavily encrypted channels. That source turned out to be the 29-year-old NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and his revelations about the agency’s widespread, systemic overreach proved to be some of the most explosive and consequential news in recent history, triggering a fierce debate over national security and information privacy. As the arguments rage on and the government considers various proposals for reform, it is clear that we have yet to see the full impact of Snowden’s disclosures.
Now for the first time, Greenwald fits all the pieces together, recounting his high-intensity ten-day trip to Hong Kong, examining the broader implications of the surveillance detailed in his reporting for The Guardian, and revealing fresh information on the NSA’s unprecedented abuse of power with never-before-seen documents entrusted to him by Snowden himself.
Going beyond NSA specifics, Greenwald also takes on the establishment media, excoriating their habitual avoidance of adversarial reporting on the government and their failure to serve the interests of the people. Finally, he asks what it means both for individuals and for a nation’s political health when a government pries so invasively into the private lives of its citizens—and considers what safeguards and forms of oversight are necessary to protect democracy in the digital age. Coming at a landmark moment in American history, No Place to Hide is a fearless, incisive, and essential contribution to our understanding of the U.S. surveillance state.
I chose this book for 9/11, not because it’s a story about the terrorist act, but because I see a clear bright line that can be traced from that day to the fear-mongering that birthed the Patriot Act and all of its restrictions on civil liberties to the security state that Edward Snowden (and Glenn Greenwald) defined in Snowden’s release of the NSA documents.
I keep thinking of the Ben Franklin quotation; “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Because that is exactly what has happened.
The reduction in civil liberties, and the rise in the government’s ability to track every single thing we say and do and write in any online context, including supposedly private emails, chat and telephone calls, does not seem to make us any safer.
But it does make it much easier for anyone, including the government, to exploit our every action to keep us from even thinking about the power that holds them in place.
Everyone has something to hide. Not just supposedly “bad people” but everyone. We hide things all the time. What we really think of our bosses and co-workers. Information about our health. Whether we are happy or unhappy. Whether we brushed our teeth and whether we lied about it to our parents when we were children.
Think about all the things you do in a day. Would you want to have to explain it all? One of the points of No Place to Hide is not that the government will necessarily do that to every person, but that the fact that they can has a chilling effect.
Compare it to the effect of management attending a union meeting to get the idea of that chilling effect. Or the effect of your parents (or your children) watching you having sex with your spouse.
The book is about courage. It’s about one person, or a very few people, having the conviction to try to change the world. Or at least to make sure that people have information and talk about the changes that have already occurred.
The title “No Place to Hide” is a message for us. The price of being connected in our society is to give up various bits of privacy to every company we do business with over the Internet. But do we expect to give it all? And should the government be able to take it all?
The revelations that Edward Snowden released in the NSA papers reads as mundane when you look at the actual memos. With all of the included and obfuscating jargon, they read like any set of internal corporate memos. It’s the meaning of them that chills. That gathering more and more data more and more secretly is a game to the government that they are determined to win at all costs.
In addition to the analysis of the documents themselves, the book also tells the story of the creation and release of the articles that contained the documents, which reads like a spy thriller but is even more chilling for being true.
The recitation of the way that the media has handled the story and the cosy relationship between the media and the government, recalls another famous quotation; “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Reality Rating A-: Two of the three parts of this book are a compelling read: the story of Snowden reaching out to Greenwald to arrange for the release of the documents and the story of the way that the media and the government handled the story after it broke reads like a spy thriller, except that it is a true story. The description of the media and governmental backlash, including the threats to the journalists’ safety and freedom makes the reader think about the way that news and opinions are represented. His essay directly discussing the relationship between corporate media and the government should frighten anyone, because anyone can be demonized in an instant. (Think of the coverage of the Occupy movement as a very recent and chilling example) The way that Greenwald demolishes the argument that “only bad people get targeted” should be read by every thinking adult.
We can all be defined as “bad people” by someone who sees simply talking about changing the order of things as a sign of instability or resistance. And if you don’t believe this, think of any employment situation and the cost of telling truth to power if that truth is negative.
While the NSA’s internal agency correspondence are not scintillating in and of themselves, the sheer level of intrusiveness into online life around the world will make you shiver, especially when it is followed by the analysis that confirms what many of us have suspected while taking off our shoes at the airport; all this data collection isn’t making us more safe. But it has the potential of making us less free.
As a professional librarian, I am a member of a profession that takes the individual’s right to read what they want without interference or oversight as a central tenet of the profession, and of a citizen’s right to privacy. The freedom of the press loses its meaning without the accompaniment of the right to read what that press has published. Librarians have been watching the expansion of the Patriot Act, including the provisions that gag any person or institution served with a warrant resulting from the powers in that act, with grave concern.
This story, and the way that both the whistleblower and the journalists have been treated as a result of breaking this story, should concern us all.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
Earlier this summer, I read the latest doorstop in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, Written in My Own Heart’s Blood. (Of course there’s a review).
The genesis of everything lies in the Battle of Fromelles, which took place in France in World War I. Fromelles wasn’t merely a disaster for the Allies, it was also one of the most costly battles in history for the Australian Army. Over 5,500 men were killed in 24 hours of fighting.
Elizabeth Van Lew was a Richmond abolitionist, but also a rich woman from a prominent family. She remained at her family home in Richmond throughout the War, spying assiduously for the Union. She often sent her dispatches north with escaped Union soldiers who she had helped free from the Richmond POW prisons. While her wartime services was recently fictionalized in The Spymistress (reviewed 
The picture of the war is also made much fuller by the account of Van Lew’s Confederate counterpart, Rose Greenhow. Greenhow was an ardent secessionist, but her family home was in Washington D.C. When the Union split, Rose saw her opportunity to use her knowledge of the insiders in Washington government to seduce and suborn as many high-ranking officials as possible, sending her dispatches south in the hands of young women and slaves. Her information was credited with helping the Confederacy win the first battle at Bull Run.
Belle Boyd is possibly the most infamous spy in the Civil War, to the point where Cherie Priest co-opted her identity for use in her Boneshaker series. But the real life Boyd was even more sensational than the fictional one. Boyd starts as a willful and completely uncooperative (and very young) woman in Martinsburg, Virginia. An ardent secessionist, she openly flirted and courted every Union officer who came within her orbit. Belle didn’t merely send dispatches, she also ran them herself. Martinsburg became part of the new state of West Virginia during the war, but she continued to spy on the Union.
Last, but not least, Sarah Emma Edmonds serviced from 1861 until 1863 as Frank Thompson. Not, as the romantic literature often has it, because she was following a sweetheart, but simply as a way to escape her overbearing father. Because of her slight stature and small frame, she was frequently asked to spy on nearby Confederate regiments while dressed as a woman. It was a double disguise; a woman, pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. It worked.
Reality Rating B+: I preferred this account of Van Lew’s life to the fictional one; while the outline was the same, this one felt like it contained less melodrama. In fiction, she came across as slightly wooden, but in a more factual account her achievements shone through.
Liar Temptress Soldier Spy
