The Lindens by Barney Jeffries; Lovely History of a House and Its People

The Lindens by Barney Jeffries; Lovely History of a House and Its People 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Barney Jeffries’ The Lindens is similar to Edward Rutherfurd’s Epic Historical Fiction novels like Sarum, London, and New York. Like Rutherfurd, Jeffries covers a large cast of characters for an extensive period of time in a specific location. This book covers approximately 150 years of a house in Marshmead, England called The Lindens.

The Lindens was built in 1885 by rising businessman Arnold Cann for his family. The various characters that live there are an eclectic group of people over the years who have their own rich and captivating stories to tell. There's Tessa Hobson, a highly intelligent milkmaid with an advantageous marriage, Henry Cook, a WWII evacuee who acquires a love of birds, Irene Cotter who is contemplating leaving her abusive marriage, Arthur and Eleanor Aldridge, a hippie couple who weigh their next steps after their successful children's book series comes to an end, The Blakes, a multigenerational family that has an eventful Christmas season with plenty of emotional baggage, Veronika Lambert, a Slovakian immigrant who is faced with xenophobic neighbors, and Marsha Wood, whose investigation into The Lindens and its residents brings all of the various characters together.

Like any good Historical Fiction novel about a particular space, Jeffries personifies The Lindens so that the house becomes a character in its own right, in fact the central character. Its solid brick exterior, gabled windows, and bay windows suggest a stable protectorate for those who live there. The four bedrooms, indoor bathroom, two smaller servant rooms, drawing room, cellar, lawn, walled garden, stables, coach house, and orchard reveal The Lindens as a home of tremendous wealth but restraint in showing it off. The various touches that are added over the years such as the row of lime trees, the pond, built-in swimming pool, fountain gardens, and additions give the home different traits and characteristics that are found within each family and over the generations. 

In general The Lindens is a house that can very quickly become a home. It is beautiful, stately, charming, steady, ornate, proud, imposing, warm, and inviting. It holds the various memories, voices, personalities, behaviors, triumphs, tragedies, loves, and losses of the people who lived there.

Besides capturing The Lindens’ many facets and changes, Jeffries also captures the various characters’ individualities and complexities. A truly insurmountable and impressive feat considering the large cast that covers hundreds of years of English history. There are many well written characters from different backgrounds, goals, personality traits, experiences, and memories that surround the book. Jeffries created a memorable ensemble.

Tessa Hobson starts the book out strong. She is a dairy maid from a lower class family, but instantly shows her vast intelligence that is beyond what most people think of her. She captures the eye of The Lindens’ heir, Roger Cann, as he reads Romantic poetry out loud. Tessa is amused that it appears he is reading out loud to the cows. This gesture becomes a running gag between the couple as they joke that they met when “Roger read Keats to the cows.” This moment of literary connection leads to others as Tessa reveals her own literary interests from Thomas Hardy, to the Romantics are as vast as Roger’s.

Tessa however isn’t just verbally intelligent, she reveals herself to be brilliant in numbers by keeping track of her family finances and tallying the gallons of milk that are collected and distributed. She also has an entrepreneurial mind as she has plans to modernize the Cann’s dairy farm and far reaching goals to see those plans through. It’s no surprise that Roger’s father, Arnold recruits Tessa as the farm’s manager and bucks tradition by putting a woman in charge of a growing business that ends up a success.

The importance of knowledge and learning is spread throughout the centuries as the characters receive opportunities to learn new things, express that knowledge in different ways, and pass that knowledge to others. One of those characters is Henry Cook, a boy from London taken in as an evacuee by Tessa in her old age. Henry gains a love of nature as he explores the gardens, the trees, the orchards, and especially the birds. Tessa and Henry bond through their bird watching trips where he learns to identify the various bird species that surround The Lindens.

This love of nature continues throughout Henry’s life as he becomes a respected ornithologist who writes a series of books about birds in England. In old age, he revisits the Lindens with his family and cries tears of joy as he locates the current avian inhabitants of the estate, no doubt descendants of the birds that he knew when he was a boy. He also passes this knowledge and love of nature to the young people that accompany him like his grandson, Laurence Wood, Laurence’s wife, Aleesha, and Aleesha’s sister, Marsha.

Besides knowledge, The Lindens becomes a therapeutic location that helps its residents and visitors explore their creativity and individuality. Arthur and Eleanor Aldridge wrote and illustrated The Brixton Bunnies, a series of satirical children’s books that also appeal to adults. They received plenty of inspiration, fame, wealth, and made their voices and opinions heard through these books. But they landed in a rut and felt the series ran its course. Buying the Lindens gives Arthur some much needed inspiration for his next project: a series of serio-comic stories and novels about life in the country. 

However, creativity and the results of that creativity can be all-consuming. The Aldridges were once united in working on The Brixton Bunnies as a duo, but since moving to The Lindens, their lives veer away from each other. Eleanor is enamored with this country home and continues to illustrate adaptations of children’s classics. Despite writing about the country, Arthur is interested in expanding his writing interests and his horizons. He wants to travel, see new places, and meet new people, including other women. Not surprisingly, these differences become insurmountable and the couple realize that their marriage has to come to an end which results in trauma for their son, Felix. He goes through a series of problems in his life including addiction, depression, constant relocation, and frequent job dissatisfaction before he returns to The Lindens to find a peace of mind and his own creativity and voice. 

The Lindens is a location of coming and going and is different things to different people. For Irene Cotter and her son, Eric, the house is a beautiful prison that stands as a symbol of their captivity by an abusive husband and father. The only way that they can achieve any freedom is to leave it. For Veronika Lambert, The Lindens is a symbol of freedom as she flees her troubled home country to a place of security and comfort. 

The Lindens is also a place of nostalgia among and is a place to come back to and relive a carefree innocent childhood. One of the best chapters that illustrate this is when the family of Julia and Glen Blake are reunited for the winter holidays. The parents and their three children come to terms with their adult struggles and conflicts while retaining those youthful memories, competitions, arguments, and family ties. The oldest daughter, Alex, has a high powered white collar career but is consumed with loneliness, envy, and alcoholism. Their only son, Robin and his wife, Kelly are at odds because of their different parenting styles towards their infant twins. Meanwhile Ruthie, the youngest, is concerned whether her family will accept her girlfriend, Marsha.

It’s worth noting that the majority of people who receive the house are not direct immediate descendants or heirs. It isn't primarily a home that is passed from parent to child. Nephews inherit from aunts and uncles. In-laws receive it instead of blood relatives. Mostly, families purchase the home from previous tenants. Most of the characters are not related by blood, nor do they arrive or leave the Lindens with the comfort of a wide ancestry which tell them that this space is and will always be theirs by birth. Instead they are united by their connections to the house and to each other. 

The various characters are drawn together by an investigation conducted by Marsha. Her curiosity about this place and its inhabitants opens a wide circle among them. Some purchase The Lindens from others. Some marry or become romantically involved with members of the other families. Visitors return to this beautiful house that once held their pasts. Even those who are long deceased are shouted out by current inhabitants visiting their graves or recognizing their contributions to the house. 

It’s a wide circle that is centered around this one space that meant so many things to so many people. The people that dwelled within, the characteristics and traits that were included, the memories and connections that are formed, the history, its current life, and the future generations are what turns this house into a home.

The Wallace House of Pain by S.M. Stevens; Muted Rage (The Forge Trilogy in The Shadow Guardians Series Book 2) by G. Russell Gaynor; In Search of Cognizance by Nabraj Lama

The Wallace House of Pain by S.M. Stevens

One of the best books that I read last year was Beautiful and Terrible Things by S.M. Stevens. It was a witty and insightful character study about a group of six friends: Charley, a bookseller, Xander, a political activist, Jessica, a financial analyst, Sunny, a solar energy systems sales associate, Terrence, Xander's fellow activist, and Buwan, an artist. The novel covers a period of several months where the friends face various personal internal conflicts, such as new romances, family drama,and shifting careers, and political external conflicts such as racial profiling, immigrant xenophobia, and income inequality. It's a wide reaching novel that covers various topics but also brilliantly captures its six protagonist’s traits, characteristics, and eccentricities that make them stand out as individuals and part of a group.

Stevens reentered that universe with the short novel, The Wallace House of Pain. Instead of an expansive novel about many things and having six leads, this one is shorter and more intimate focusing solely on one character. 

This time the lead is Xander Wallace himself. The short novel covers six chapters in which Xander brings each friend to his Conservative parent's house for dinner. The contrast between the fiery opinionated Xander, his rigid uncompromising father, Jim, his placid demure stepmother, Kathy, and his iconoclastic diverse friends is quite apparent.

Since this story is more compact, we get a closer look at Xander's background and experiences and how they contributed to his lifestyle and decisions in the novel. He is someone who saw a lot of artifice and superficiality. A home with plenty of affluent creature comforts but an inability to live his truth. He loves his parents and vice versa, but feels like he has to play a role for them.

 Xander can't discuss his work in any meaningful way. While he voices his political opinions, it can be very draining as he, and his parents especially his father, talk circles around each other never coming to an even ground. Xander has to hide his bisexuality, his political involvement, and even his name (His friends call him, “Xander” while his parents call him, “Alex”). Xander can't be his authentic self as he hides parts of himself from his family.

Much of Xander's real self is revealed by the family’s conversations with his friends. Terrence connects to his commitment to political activism. Sunny represents Xander's sexuality and gender identity. Jessica is indicative of the passion and talent that leads to finding a gainful career. Charley reflects his emotional and social connections with others. Buwan reveals Xander's self-expression and creative thinking as he uses his activism to shape the world into a better, more idealistic place with actual racial harmony and equality. 

Through the short novel, the larger aspects of Beautiful and Terrible Things are referred to particularly a Black Lives Matter protest that is a central climax in the previous novel. Xander's friends and his real self can no longer be denied as he reveals the real him to his father and stepmother, bisexual Liberal environmental social activist and all. He is able to be the open honest authentic person that we saw in the novel and be that person to his family.

The Wallace House of Pain is a small thread in the tapestry of the larger work but a very important one.

 

Muted Rage (The Forge Trilogy in The Shadow Guardians Series Book 2) by G. Russell Gaynor 

In The Blind Smith, the first book in G. Russell Gaynor’s The Forge Trilogy in The Shadow Guardians Series, tech billionaire genius John James “J.J.” Moore is severely wounded and rendered blind in an attack that kills his security team and his lover. He is recruited by a secret organization of spies and assassins and obtains the code name, “Augur.” He is able to use his new found abilities and organization to seek vengeance upon his enemies, including traitors to the organization.

The second volume, Muted Rage, elevates J.J.’s status significantly within the organization. Instead of being the rookie student, J.J. is now actively recruiting and training new members. His latest recruit is Sonya Bocharova, a Russian deaf woman. He sees a lot of himself in her. Her arrival can't come at a better or worse time because their enemies are closing in and ramping up their attacks.

This volume focuses primarily on action and plot which works well in the Political Spy Thriller subgenre. Sometimes the various characters and sides are disconcerting because it's hard to tell who is with which organization. Readers and characters are conditioned to be on the lookout for traitors and double crosses so just because someone seems on one side doesn't mean that they are going to stay that way. Sometimes it's a surprise twist but mostly because everyone is so suspicious, have ulterior motives, and live in worlds of morally gray, it's to be expected. Betrayal is the most logical step in their development.

The action also serves as a means for the various sides to show off their intellect. In the first book,  J.J., was playing 3-D chess while everyone else is playing checkers. In this book, everyone else is playing the same game of chess. Every character, including J.J., is trying to outfight and outsmart each other. As one organization gets an advantage, the next one fires back and so on. It keeps the Readers invested with its suspenseful tone.

While action is the primary facet to this book, there is some time for insightful characterization particularly in J.J.’s evolution from fresh newbie to hardened veteran. He was always somewhat arrogant in the previous book, though he had moments where his naivete was noticeable. There were also times when his conceit cost him dearly.

In this volume, J.J.’s character ascends to frightening levels. His Authoritarian streak is more paramount. Now that he is leader, his leadership style is iron will. In one chapter, one of J.J.’s colleagues calls him out on his personality and J.J. answers in a way that suggests that he is unapologetic and will only get worse. It raises the possibility whether in a future volume, characters may be driven to stop John James Moore rather than work with or for him.

So far though, J.J. still shows some glimmers of kindness. This is particularly noticeable in his dialogue with Sonya. They have a great deal in common, both have disabilities that they have or are in the process of using to their advantage as assassins. They both carry a lot of grief and anger.

 J.J. is at the point where he can guide someone else to channel that anger and put it to good use and Sonya sees a higher opportunity to protect others and unleash vengeance. With the help of sign language and technology that allows them to communicate, the two come to an understanding and partnership, perhaps even a friendship or more.

The action and lead characters help Muted Rage act on many of the things that were hinted at in the first volume. It prepares and keeps Readers in suspense ready for the next one.

In Search of Cognizance by Nabraj Lama 

It has been my pleasure to work with Nabraj Lama on his book, In Search of Cognizance. It is an evocative and insightful travel book about journeying to find a practical and spiritual path.

After a period of stress, frustration, and unanswered questions, Lama received a position from The Sacred Himalaya Initiative: Sacred Landscapes and Sustainable Futures. The project focused on studying and documenting the relationships between ecology and religion focusing on sacred spaces like Mount Kailash, a place that he studied on his own. The urge to travel to the Tibetan mountain consumed him so he decided to visit it. Lama had two objectives for the journey: to complete the project assignment and pursue a personal quest for spirituality. He describes this trip as one of “self-discovery and growth, as well as an exploration of the interconnectedness between humanity, nature, and the divine.”

This book is both rich in sensory detail and deep in spiritual meaning. It fills the senses with physical descriptions of the landscape and soothes the brain and emotions with its themes of connecting the physical plane with the spiritual. 

Lama’s gift for description is noticeable as he recounts the various settings before him. For example, he referred to Humla as “a hidden gem within the Himalayas (that) boasts breathtaking natural beauty, ecological diversity, and a rich cultural tapestry…a living testament to nature and culture.”

“With its towering green cliffs, cascading waterfalls, bountiful herbs, swift rivers, mesmerizing landscapes, and dense forests, Humla is truly remarkable,” Lama wrote.

The places that Lama and his companions visited were indicative of the countries and the people. One of the places that they visited was Dharipuri, a fish-shaped rock that according to legend were once a pair of real fish that transformed into rocks. When Lama observed the rock, he was struck between the obvious difference in the Tibetan and Hindu communities and the contrast of the downstream where fish were present and upstream where they were not. “The reasons behind the cultural and ecological divide remain elusive, but the fish-shaped rocks will forever stand as a testament to the mysteries of the region,” he said.

Besides places, Lama is adept at recounting the people that he encountered on his journey. His traveling companions, local villagers, officials, and hospitality workers are richly characterized. Among them was Ram Bhakta Sunar, a luggage handler. He owned three mules that carried tourist's luggage from one point to another. He cared for them so they provided for his family. During the off season, Ram let them run free in the forest and only retrieved them for work. He had goals such as wanting to get married at age 19 and one day have a family. Learning about Ram gave Lama some insight to what life was like for villagers, especially the ones that were dependent on tourism and the local environment to survive.

During the trip, Lama and his colleagues witness local concerns such as conservation, poverty, and the pinch of authoritarianism. Nowhere is this more prevalent than when they entered TAR, China. The travelers were ordered not to carry any items related to the Dalai Lama, wander off, enter, or take photographs of anything that they weren't allowed to. They were forbidden from bringing notebooks, books, cell phones, or other controversial items. It's a stark reminder that when traveling to other countries, one must be aware of the land around them and be careful when observing laws and regulations. 

The places that they visited reflected the local culture and folklore. Among those are the sacred lakes, Manasarovar and Rakshas Tal. Rakshas Tal is called the Lake of Demons and its black waters invited legends and stories that it was once frequented by demons. Manasarovar is considered sacred waters and is revered by various religions. It is believed that the waters purify the souls of those who bathed within it. 

The two lakes show the transformative power between the physical and spiritual world, that folklore is often used to describe nature and nature is often used to augment local lore.

Like many long travels, Lama writes about the problems which can occur. There was physical pain experienced by Lama and other travelers (particularly one woman who had menstrual pain while climbing a steep path). There were times where the groups separated and couldn't find each other for awhile. Of course there were times of complications like getting lost, missing a hostel, personality conflicts and all of the usual problems associated with travel. 

One of the most meaningful complications which led to some important lessons occurred while walking along the Dolma La Pass. It was a narrow but crowded path where travelers, locals, and animals teemed along the path. Lama opted to take small steps and opted for shortcuts rather than get in people's way. He was happy to see people helping each other, guiding, or pulling one another down the path.

 Lama himself decided to go through great effort on the path. He crawled through a narrow passageway to test his karma. He finally reached Mt. Kailash Kora to pay his respects, meditated, sang, and shared camaraderie with his companions and other visitors. The struggle of going through the pass was just as important as the destination of Mt. Kailash Kora. Lama said that the kora stands “as a powerful testament to the enduring human spirit and our unwavering pursuit of personal growth and self-realization.”

The trip was one where Lama wanted to seek spiritual fulfillment. His journey to Mt. Kailash gave him more than that. He wrote that he gained fulfillment and enrichment from this journey. 

Lama had “a newfound sense of serenity and inner peace, reflecting on the transformative experiences encountered along the way,” he said. “…The return journey transcended the physical realm, evolving into a deeply introspective and emotional endeavor… I realized that this voyage had left an indomitable mark on my soul, forever changing perspective on life, spirituality, and the power of nature.”

The journey allowed Lama to confront his fears and anxieties.He recognized kindness, respect, gratitude and selflessness that transformed his life and those around him. He recognized the interconnectedness of humanity, nature, and the divine. The experience gave him a stronger sense of purpose and spirit which he continues to share as a Research Scholar at Lumbini Buddhist University, and his articles and books on spiritual and cultural topics.

Lama's book shows Readers that the natural world can be the key for one to reconnect to the metaphysical world and to achieve mental, emotional, and spiritual clarity and peace.

Gittel by Laurie Schneider; Speechless in Achten Tan (Book 1 Of The Sands of Achten Tan) by Debbie Iancu-Haddad; Slumber Nevermore by R.J. Garcia

 

Gittel by Laurie Schneider 

This is a brief summary of my review. The main review can be found on LitPick 

Gittel by Laurie Schneider is reminiscent of many coming of age books like Anne of Green Gables and The Little House books. It's not long on plot. It prefers instead to focus on various individual conflicts in Gittel’s life that test her character and teach her various lessons.

13 year old Gittel Borenstein is part of a Jewish family that emigrated from East Europe because of a pogrom to Mill Creek, Wisconsin with 12 other Jewish families. The book focuses on various events in Gittel’s young life such as bullying from Antisemitic classmates, conflicts with her more traditional Orthodox family, a budding romance with a local boy, and her participation in a Chautauqua.  

The book is strong on character, time, and place. The Borensteins emigrated for their safety but still feel out of place in this rural American country. Gittel has to suffer from insults and threats from other students, particularly Karl Leckner, whose religious Antisemitic father takes every opportunity to compare them to demons. Gittel shows her strengths by using witty comebacks and verbally challenging her antagonists. She even describes her mouth as the sharpest weapon that she and her friends, Irene and Emily, have.

Gittel struggles with not only societal conflicts but those within her own family. Gittel is a maturing young woman who is fascinated with the American way of life while her traditional Orthodox family mostly clings to the tight-knit Jewish community around them. Gittel makes gentile friends, develops her interests in singing, dancing, and reading, and uses her talent in public speaking during a Chautauqua. She nurtures aspirations to continue her education and become an actress or writer despite some of her family's concerns and soft objections. 

The most heartwarming moments are when Gittel and her family come to an understanding about her aspirations and interests and she recognizes their own adaptability as well as her own. She recognizes loving bonds which while hidden and not always expressed out loud, but are always felt. 

Gittel is the Yiddish word for “good” which is a decent description of the book. However, it's more than good. Gittel is great.

Speechless in Achten Tan (Book 1 in The Sands of Achten Tan) by Debbie Iancu-Haddad

This is a brief summary of my review. The main review can be found on LitPick. 

Speechless in Achten Tan is a Fantasy novel that will appeal to YA and Adult Readers with its captivating lead character and her search for her personal power.

 Mila, a mute cavern gnome, goes through a test to be considered worthy to study magic. After she fails the test, her mentor, Nora, sends her to the desert world of Achten Tan to study magic under Gerwyn, a wise and powerful witch. While in Achten Tan, Mila finds romance and friendship, becomes involved in a power struggle against the despotic Bone Chief Opu Haku, and discovers her strength and voice.

After her test, Mila is in despair because she doesn't conform to what her community believes are their standards of maturity. She is deprived of the ability to speak and to practice magic. She cannot ascend in their world so she is deprived of her agency. The dramatic irony is the reason behind her failure. Mila’s brother, Turosh, drowned over the same waterfall where she was being tested. She was temporarily overcome with grief, lost control, and failed the test. A moment of emotion remembering a traumatic event that shaped her youth and motivated her to continue studying ended up becoming a barrier in her pursuit of magic and full acceptance into her society.

As with the heroes in many legends and books in the genre, Mila is sent to continue her journey elsewhere. She has to leave to continue her studies. Her journey to Achten Tan also allows her to connect with her past, present, and future. Her boyfriend from the village, Geb, is also in Achten Tan to train as a healer. He provides an emotional center and keeps Mila focused as her abilities increase.

She also befriends Kaii, son of Opu Haku, the Bone Chief. Mila's friendship allows the son to step out from his father's tyrannical shadow and fight against him. Mila widens the scope of her magical pursuits to make long lasting changes with other kingdoms including her own. 

Mila is even able to reconcile her grief over Tarush’s death. She comes to terms with the loss and its aftereffects. While death and loss are still painful for her, she is able to set them aside and move forward on her path to maturity.

This is a Fantasy novel that many, especially young people, will relate to as they follow their own paths, discover their own abilities, and gain their own voices.

Slumber Nevermore by R.J. Garcia

R.J. Garcia knows how to keep Readers up at night. With the anthology, Slumber Nevermore she crosses genres to give the Readers a full effect of dark twisted tales that deliver on chills, ominous energy, and unforgettable mental images. 

There are seven stories but the best are:

“The Stolen Child”-This story is a Dark Fantasy that plays on those frightening magical creatures: Fairies.

Garcia refrains from the wholesome fairytale Disney image of fairies and focuses instead on the variations from myth and legends where they are powerful, capricious, demand to be respected, and should be kept at a safe distance. 

Mae is anxious about her sister, Emmie, who disappeared right in front of her. She has this sensation that they had been watched and out of the corner of her eye, she thinks that strange figures appear and disappear. She always suspected that there were fairies in the woods. Could she be right? Spoiler Alert: She is.

The fairies are written as ominous and secretive. They appear as orbs of light, shrill whistles, or silhouettes. Mae isn't sure if they are dreams or if they are real. Then when she finally talks to them, she isn't sure if they are good, evil, or neutral with their own moral code. They could go either way. Their ambiguity is their strength and while she is with them, Mae is completely at their mercy. As long as she is in their world, they could do whatever they want to her and no one would know about it. 

“The Stolen Child” is a modern fairy tale told to a Horror loving audience. Anyone who reads fairy tales knows that fairies can be sinister or helpful but are rarely the main antagonists. Instead the real villains are often a lot closer to the protagonist’s home than that. Those villains are cruel, malicious, and bring the worst misfortunes. 

“Lipstick”-This story is a Paranormal Horror that should not be read by anyone with coulrophobia. 

10 year old Billy sneaks out one night to see a carnival. The night of rickety rides, junk food, and fun to be scared thrills turns to terror when he encounters a demonic looking clown. The clown not only makes a formidable impression but makes him an offer that haunts him for years.

Dark carnivals might be cliched and scary clowns even more so, but they are used so often because they work. Carnivals can give off a sinister vibe when one thinks about it. These places of supposed amusement contain rides that are quickly put together by people who might have dubious reputations and are certainly in a hurry. A guest’s safety depends on them. Is it any wonder that they inspire fear? If you read books like Something Wicked This Way Comes or saw movies like Freaks or Carnival of Souls among others, you know what I am talking about.

Then there are clowns. They hide their true faces, come up close and face to face with children, seem impossibly cherry, and wear garish makeup. Lest we forget fictional clowns like Pennywise or real ones like John Wayne Gacy who certainly had dark sides. A clown can be terrifying. A carnival can be spooky. A clown in a carnival is frequent but also can give you that instant chill down the spine, the chill that warns you that maybe you should have stayed home.

Billy ignored that chilly warning and ultimately paid a huge price for it. This brief moment changes his life in many disturbing ways that leaves him traumatized and alone. The final paragraphs show the complete impact that this demonic clown had over his life to the point that Billy can't separate himself from him.

“Sister Witches”-It’s rare to have a Horror short story told from the point of view of the monster, but this story does and turns a story that would normally herald fear for the victim instead invites pity and regret for the monster. 

Cassandra is one of three witches. The other two are her sisters, Sheba and Celeste. The trio kill mortals and absorb their youth to remain forever young and beautiful. Their latest victim is Tommy, an aging man who is residing in a nursing home. 

The witches' goal is to preserve their youth. Their absorption of others’s essences is graphic but is comparable to an addiction rather than an unexplainable supernatural or demonic force. It ruins the mortals but also the witches as well.

Cassandra and her sisters absorb the essence not because they want to, but because they think that they have to and are unable to survive without it. This takes a toll on Cassandra in particular. She has become someone who isn't terrifying or frightening. Instead, she's weary and tired of life. She is ready to die but is unable to. 

In a way the fear doesn't come from an outside source, but from within. If we compare their immortality to an addiction, the fear comes from feeling forced to get that immortality and what it would be like to live without it. Cassandra fears what they have done, what they will do, and what would happen if that eternity would end. She is simultaneously longing for death and afraid of what happens if it comes. 

“The Axeman Among Us”-Of the stories, this is the most realistic. Instead of Dark Fantasy or Supernatural Horror, this is more like a Psychological Thriller. It features an infamous real life serial killer. The Axeman of New Orleans was a serial killer who murdered mostly Italian immigrants or Italian-American men from 1918-1919. Most notably, a letter allegedly from The Axeman said that he would not kill anyone on a certain night in homes where jazz played. Musicians played in hundreds of homes that night. The Axeman was never identified and no arrests were made.

Vincent and his friends, Mikey and Dupree are startled one night by the sound of a scream and a dark mysterious figure hastily leaving a building with an ax in hand. They suspect that he might be the Axeman. The trio become obsessed with the case and go to extreme lengths to stop the Axeman's reign of terror.

This story’s tone and atmosphere are on point. The Axeman is certainly human but he carries a demonic aura. He haunts Vincent's dreams and is described more of as an otherworldly presence than an actual human being. He invites the possibility that he might not be human at least in this version. But the fact that he is, somehow makes him even more chilling. He has a human way of planning and analyzing how to commit the murders without getting caught and an inhuman desire to hack a human body to pieces.

There are some interesting twists to the story. Since it is set in New Orleans, we get motifs like voodoo and jazz. Voodoo presents the only supernatural link in the story and even that might just be within the minds of those who believe in it. It also makes sense that in absence of any physical legal help to stop the Axeman, the boys would turn to more esoteric means. Voodoo is a large part of New Orleans life but it is also held in suspicion by non-practitioners. There is something supernatural and eerie about it, the type of thing that would draw someone like the Axeman. The boys are using one unusual potentially dark path to capture one unusual dark person. 

Jazz music also plays a large part most prominently practiced by Vincent's brother, Peter. It not only plays into the physical location but the time period as well. Jazz is improvisation mixed with deep emotion like pain, anger, sadness, and love. While popular, it was also controversial and considered an outsider’s choice of music like rock or rap would be later. The kind of music someone who stands on the outside fringes of society would listen to.

It's also worth noting that Peter is a WWI veteran. This is the time of the Lost Generation, when soldiers returned home with deep trauma. Where flappers and college kids decided to live freely without a care. It was a time where people were aware that life could end at any moment, so might as well grab all that you can. This deep emotion is played by someone who saw death up close and killed people because his government told him to. Maybe Peter feels a disturbing connection to the Axeman, an understanding about what it's like to live on the outside fringe, with longing and emotions that he can't express openly, and living with a violent and bloody past. 

These stories deliver scares to the characters and the Reader making their sleep a truly unpleasant one.

When Banana Stains Fade: A Jamaican Family Saga of Adversity and Redemption by Frances-Marie Coke

 

When Banana Stains Fade: A Jamaican Family Saga of Adversity and Redemption by Frances-Marie Coke 

Spoilers: When Banana Stains Fade: A Jamaican Family Saga of Adversity and Redemption by Frances-Marie Coke is the second book in a row dealing with intergenerational conflicts concerning mother and daughters after Red Gifts in The Garden of Stones by P.A. Swanborough. While the latter trod a thin line between the reality of the family in question’s situation and the fantasy of their pagan past, the former has no such detours into the fantastic. It is firmly set in the reality of racism, poverty, classicism, gender inequality, domestic violence, and generational conflicts. All of this is in a setting that is quite familiar with this blog. In fact, it was a setting that was quite common in the books that I read and reviewed last year: Jamaica.

In 2002, Zarah left New York for her childhood home of Jamaica. Her parents, Esther and Bradley and grandmother, Naomi are worried and anxious about their daughter's sorrowful return and her memories of an unhappy abusive marriage left behind in New York. Esther’s concern is also joined by loving but strident remainders that she told Zarah that her marriage wouldn't end well. Her kind anxious demeanor often features acidic attacks on Zarah’s choices and personality. This behavior causes their already volatile relationship to become even more strained and leads to threats of estrangement between mother and daughter. Naomi views the conflict with empathy and understanding. After all she had been through something similar with Esther, just as her mother, Pearlie and Aunt Eudora had been through with her, and their mother, Agatha had been through with them. So the Reader is treated to over 100 years of Jamaican history seen through the eyes of five generations of six fascinating women.

What is particularly fascinating and compelling about this book is that it ignores the touristy side of Jamaica. Oh, some of it’s there: the beautiful landscape, the friendly hospitable locals, the Rastafarian religion and its beliefs. There is even a shout out to author Sir Ian Fleming, who made Jamaica his home as he wrote his James Bond novels. But they are largely left in the background. Instead, we are shown what life was and is like for the locals and all is definitely not paradise for the people who live there. 

The forefront of the book features many of the truths that lie within Jamaica’s sandy beaches and reggae music. It is a history of colonization and racism. It is a present of poverty, economic disparity, and domestic violence. These issues are not treated with bold overlines and dramatic emphasis. Instead they are seen and experienced by the people, specifically the family that encounter them.

We are first told of Zarah’s return and her fractured relationship with her parents. We are then treated to a flashback of an affair that Esther had which ended in her divorce and Zarah’s anger at her mother. The majority of the book consists of flashbacks that begin in 1900 with Agatha, Zarah’s great great grandmother and Esther’s great grandmother. Through this family, we see the conflicts that mark one generation and cause friction with the next. 

Agatha works in a sleepy town and is dominated by her religious family, particularly her father. She is told by women around her to just accept whatever treatment that she gets from men. With only that advice in hand, she enters into a relationship with Mas’ Watson, a well-off farmer. Watson gives Agatha two daughters: Eudora and Pearlie. Agatha works to gather and tag bananas to help support her family but can’t avoid the stares and innuendo that people have about her daughters. 

People gossip about Pearlie’s darker skin compared to Eudora who is much lighter. They marvel at the latter’s perceived beauty and predict that she will go far in life. They shake their heads in dread at Pearlie and believe that she will have a future of hardship. Even Agatha’s attempts to straighten Pearlie’s hair or give her lemon juice to lighten her complexion do not hide her real appearance. 

Many degrade the young girl and Mas’ Watson shows preferential treatment towards Eudora. This shows that even when many people are from the same race, there is unfortunately still division within that race. Sometimes there are stereotypical racist beliefs about the difference between people who are from the same basic skin color but whose shades are darker or lighter and hair is straight or curly.

The scrutiny of Agatha’s daughter’s different skin tones and accusations of whether they had different fathers fill the sisters’ lives up to when they attend school. The outrage becomes so bad that after she is raped, Pearlie runs away. She resides in another village where she gives birth to her daughter, Naomi and enters into a relationship with Bertie, a man whose family helps the single mother get back on her feet. Unfortunately, Pearlie’s happiness is cut short and Naomi finds herself alone and friendless like her mother. 

Naomi ends up living with her cold religious Aunt Eudora. Eudora at first doesn’t even want to take in the girl but she is convinced to do so because of her commitment to Christian duty and how it would look within her community to reject her own flesh and blood. Out of rebellion, Naomi attends the local Catholic church and rejects many of the spiritual teachings from her aunt. 

Naomi falls in love with Miles, a musician who spins fantasies within her about moving to America and starting a new life. That isn’t all that he spins within her. No sooner is she pregnant with her daughter, Esther, than she too is left behind like her mother and grandmother before her.

In the most harrowing section, Naomi enters an unhappy second marriage to Pastor Bloomfield. Bloomfield’s abusive and controlling nature is present as he micromanages her schedule down to prayer times and how long she can meet her friends. He won’t allow her to find a career outside of caring for his home and church. In a very classicist gesture, he forces her to stop using the Jamaican patois and speak the standard British English.

 Because of her limited relationship with her biological family and limited resources, Naomi is trapped in an abusive marriage with someone who she thought was a man of God but turned out to be someone who thought that he was God and had a private church of two worshippers: his wife and stepdaughter. 

A very terrifying encounter breaks Bloomfield’s hold on Naomi and Esther and the two rebuild their lives elsewhere. Naomi reverts to the spiritual beliefs that had always provided her comfort and in an act of defiance against her ex, reverts back to the Jamaican patois that he ridiculed. 

With the generations of Agatha, Pearlie, Eudora, and Naomi we see mothers struggling with problems of racism, poverty, religious dogma, and domestic violence. Each one works and hopes that the younger generation will succeed where they failed. With Esther and Zarah, we see the results of those dashed dreams, the desire to escape, and how that unhappiness and disappointment played into their relationships as mother and daughter and the men in their lives. 

Even though Esther had a comparatively happy marriage to Bradley as compared to her mother’s with Brookfield and great-grandmother’s with Mas’ Watson, even she had troubles. In 1988, Esther reunited with her former boyfriend, Patrick who lived an affluent life in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. She had been living a meager existence with Bradley scraping for every dollar and was growing tired of the struggle. She dreamed not only of a different wealthy life in Florida but of the dashing man who could have given it to her.

 Thoughts become actions during a hurricane and Esther ends up with a miscarriage, a divorce, and a resentful daughter. What was truly heartbreaking in hindsight was that Bradley is an easygoing, steady, kind hearted man. His laid back nature could have provided a contrast to Esther’s more rigid strident domineering control over Zarah’s life. Zarah could have had an ally when arguing with her mother. Instead she reacted to strictness with rebellion and ran away. Esther only realizes when Zarah returns that Bradley has a peculiar strength in his blundering kindness that she overlooked. 

Zarah is considered the great hope of the family. Her mother puts enormous pressure on her to succeed well in school and have the right friends. She becomes something of an overachiever with dreams of escaping Jamaica. However, she also falls in love with Damien, considering him a reprieve from her mother’s tight control and secrets which caused her family to implode. 

Unlike her antecedents, who only dreamt of a life away from the island, Zarah managed to get away and form a life for herself. But her independence came with a price tag: that of being married to the abusive Damien. 

The freedom that Zarah thought that she would experience being away from Jamaica becomes even more of a trap in New York. She is beaten, insulted, and criticized. Worse, she is isolated in a new country where she is an immigrant and has very few friends. 

However, Zarah continues to work and study, raising money in secret. She befriends a woman who takes a maternal interest into her life and helps steer her into a good direction. Zarah’s drive to get out of the abusive situation shows her to be someone who learned enough from the earlier generation to plan an escape and make a new life for herself even if it means retreating to the homes of Mom and Dad for a while.

Agatha, Pearlie, Eudora, Naomi, Esther, and Zarah all lived very difficult traumatic troubled lives but they found strength in other places. Sometimes it was through close friendships, surrogate family members, their religious faith, future goals, or aspirations. Most importantly they learned from each other. Even when they didn’t always get along and fought endlessly, their inner strength and love for each other is always shown as are their hopes that the daughters will have better lives than the mother’s. 

Sometimes those dreams didn’t always come true and depended on the next generation to make it happen. Most importantly they had each other to find comfort, sanctuary, and guides to see them through the tough times and learn from them.

The Soul of a Shoemaker: The Story of Frank Katana’s Daring Escape from Communist Yugoslavia, His Rise to Freedom, and His Journey to Success by Susan Cork; Dramatic Nonfiction Novel About Escaping a Dictatorship To Freedom

The Soul of a Shoemaker: The Story of Frank Katana’s Daring Escape from Communist Yugoslavia, His Rise to Freedom, and His Journey to Success by Susan Cork; Dramatic Nonfiction Novel About Escaping a Dictatorship To Freedom

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: We are the continuation of our ancestors. In our blood lies their stories, appearances, backgrounds, struggles, loves, defeats, and triumphs. Many of those backgrounds stem from immigration coming from one country to another either by choice or by force. Many immigrant experiences speak of poverty, slavery, tyranny, crime, wealth, marginalization and a desire to escape to freedom, choice, and independence. Once we realize that our stories have more in common than they differ, can we understand that immigration is not separated as “us” or “them.” Whether our ancestors lived within one country and ethnicity or several, they combined to make us who we are.

Susan Cork’s Nonfiction novel, The Soul of a Shoemaker tells the stirring story of her father, Frank Katana and his journey from former Yugoslavia to Canada. It is a fascinating story of tyranny, romance, independence, economics, sacrifice and finding one's niche, success, and personal happiness.

The book largely emphasizes three specific points in Katana’s life: His life in rural Mali Bukovec and training as a cobbler, his growing discontent with the Communist system in Yugoslavia and attempts to escape it, and emigration to Canada and building a life, career, and family in this new country. 

Katana's time in Yugoslavia focuses on daily life. When he couldn't find training as a cobbler in his village, he had to commute to a nearby town for training. His shoe making skills came in handy when he and his friend's shoes broke and he repaired them.

There are fascinating details about the community in which Katana lived. He was part of the volunteer firefighting crew and was called in to help neighbors whose homes were on fire and needed rescuing. At a village gathering, he fell in love with Ljubica, a local woman. Even though they spent very little time together, Katana was in love enough to imagine a life with her and write to her after he left the country, certain that she would move to be with him.

The focus on the mundanity of daily life in Katana's village contrasts with the oppressive authoritarian Yugoslavian government surrounding it. Katana wasn't a rebel looking to fight against the system. He was just someone who wanted to survive within it. He said one thing, disagreed with them one time and was brought in for interrogation. 

It's an eye opening experience to read about such a dictatorship and should remind people that in such a government there is no room for disagreement. It's something that many who want or think an authoritarian government is the way to go, such as those who want a certain Project from the Heritage Foundation and other allies of a certain Presidential candidate to come to pass, should remember. No matter how loyal a person thinks they are, no matter how much that they think they will fit in because they aren't the main target that is being marginalized, an authoritarian government will eventually affect them. All it takes is a wrong word, a slight criticism, a defense of someone else and that person will become the next target. Many countries’ cemeteries and grave sites are made up of people who thought that they would be safe from tyranny and authoritarianism and who at worst initially encouraged and supported it and at best looked the other way when they were warned. 

Katana’s escape attempts are particularly suspenseful and are almost reminiscent of a thriller. One chapter focused on Katana hopping on a train fabricating a story about visiting a lover. Unfortunately, his lie was discovered by an officer and he had to make a jump for it off of the train. He then had to flee on foot to the countryside until he practically staggered into Austria. 

Katana eventually settled in Canada where he went through many steps and missteps before he could earn a decent living and send for Ljubica. One of his first employers refused to pay him the full amount of his salary. His first shoe repair business folded. His second got off to a rough start because of his indolent partners who cared more about cutting corners and getting rich than providing quality footwear. Finally, he managed to get them in line and built enough money to be comfortable and secure.

Because of their long distant relationship, Katana's romance with Ljubica is underwritten. However, it does show their commitment to each other to maintain that closeness even while living in different countries and Ljubica still living in oppressive Yugoslavia. Many times Katana received word that she was on her way only to be detained. He went through a peculiar wedding ceremony where he and Ljubica were married en absentia, with a female relative standing in place for her so they would technically be married. Their reunion and official wedding was a moment of triumph and love.

The Soul of a Shoemaker is rich with detail and emotion. It's the type of story that can make Readers laugh, cry, sigh, tense, fume, and clap sometimes within a few chapters. It has a lot of soul and technically a lot of sole. Katana wasn't a famous or notable man but his daughter knew how to bring him to life so that anyone who reads his story will know all about him.

 

New Book Alert: Emma's Tapestry by Isobel Blackthorn; Suspense and Mystery Writer Shows Gifts in Writing Historical Fiction Based On Her Own Family

 

New Book Alert: Emma's Tapestry by Isobel Blackthorn; Suspense and Mystery Writer Shows Gifts in Writing Historical Fiction Based On Her Own Family

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: We have seen Isobel Blackthorn write excellent mystery and suspense novels. With A Prison in the Sun and The Ghost of Villa Winter, she was able to capture unsolved murders and hate crimes in the beautiful vacation setting of the Canary Islands.

With The Cabin Sessions, Blackthorn captured the dark secrets and inner turmoil of a small group of people huddled inside a dismal bar/nightclub on Christmas Eve.

So how well does this Mistress of Dark Fiction write a book that is not dark or mysterious? How does she write something like, say, Historical Fiction? Well judging by her book, Emma's Tapestry, pretty well actually.

The book is about Emma Harms, who in the late 19-teens leaves her Mennonite German-American family behind to marry Ernest Taylor, a social climbing Englishman. The two move to Singapore and then Japan so Ernest can ascend in the Export business. Emma meanwhile tries to maintain a career as a nurse, give birth and raise two daughters, and try to salvage her faltering marriage.

This story of Emma's troubled marriage is also combined with her subsequent life as a single mother to her now adult daughters in 1940. She also works as a nurse for seniors, like Adela Schuster who when she was younger ran in literary circles and befriended Oscar Wilde during his arrest and disgrace for homosexuality.

Blackthorn writes a strong sense of character in this book. There is a darn good reason for that besides that she is an incredibly gifted author. Emma's Tapestry is based on a true story. It covers Blackthorn's own family history.

According to her Epilogue, Emma and Ernest were based on her great-grandparents. They had a very fractured marriage that ended with Ernest abandoning his family and the severe repercussions were felt by Blackthorn's grandmother even years later. This book is Blackthorn's way of coming to terms with her family's loss and how the end of Emma and Ernest's marriage affected them and their children.

Even though, it's a nonfiction family history, Blackthorn writes Emma's Tapestry like a novel. This approach is similar to how Alex Haley wrote Roots or John Berendt wrote Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. She uses narrative techniques like interior thoughts, point of view, and dialogue to fill in the blanks of a painful family history with her imagination and speculation over what may have happened.

Blackthorn's narrative approach makes Emma memorable as a fully formed character as well as a real person. The Reader feels sympathy when she feels out of place in Japan and Ernest is more interested in climbing the corporate ladder than he is in helping his wife through her loneliness. Things become incredibly tense when war and revolution puts Emma's family in danger. She has to deal with giving birth and raising her young girls and surviving a stressful time with an increasingly insensitive and philandering husband.

Things get worse when Emma and her daughters emigrate to the United States. Despite being American, Emma is vilified because of her German heritage. In her new home town of Brush, Colorado, she receives suspicious looks and barely hidden remarks about her family and accusations of being an enemy spy. A woman who befriends her just as quickly throws her under the bus when the KKK stop by.

This section shows how during war time, propaganda and fear of an enemy can turn people against each other. They instantly hate someone because of their appearance or their last name.

This painful reality has echoed even modern times when 9/11 caused Islamophobia. Many Americans have attacked Latin Americans during days of increased immigration at the Southern borders.

The after effects of Covid saw an increase in hate crimes towards Chinese people. Most recently Russians have been held under suspicion and attacked because of the cruelty of their Premiere Vladimir Putin.

Emma's Tapestry reveals an early example of hate crimes that develop when people are taught to hate and fear an enemy and by extension see anyone from that space as a potential enemy simply because they are from somewhere else.

In contrast to Emma's painful past, her time in 1940 is a much lighter time. While there is some suspense because of living in Britain during the Blitz, Emma seems to be in a much better position. She is still overcoming her abandonment from Ernest but is still trying to form a family with her girls. She is closer to her daughters and is looking forward to becoming a grandmother.

She also continues to pursue her faith. In the past, she had been a member of Mennonite and Lutheran churches. Later she discovers a new interest in Spiritualism. This belief allows her to communicate with the dead and gives her hope that there is an afterlife after losing members of her immediate family, while also making her more active and involved in the present material world.

Emma has a good career as a nurse and through that is able to become close to Adela. While Adela at first seems to be a bit of a daffy name dropper, she shows a lot of wisdom in her stories of the past leading Emma by example. Also Adela's loyalty to the derided and disgraced Oscar Wilde is touching especially when he is alone in Paris with few friends, family, and lovers by his side. With this loyalty and wisdom, Emma takes stock in her own life and reevaluates some of her choices.

Blackthorn's family clearly had a painful past but she was able to capture it with detail, understanding, empathy and above all love.

Weekly Reader: The Black Rose (Larkin's Barkin' Book One) by Pete Adams; Engaging Crime Thriller About East End London Crime Families Undone By Nonsensical Ending

 Weekly Reader: The Black Rose (Larkin's Barkin' Book One by Pete Adams; Engaging Crime Thriller About East End London Crime Families Undone By Nonsensical Ending

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: One thing that I will say about Pete Adams's The Black Rose is that it had a very strong premise and a great engaging and suspenseful beginning and middle. However, somewhere towards the end, it really lost itself. While the book provided plot twists that were genuinely surprising, they were so far out in left field that Adams really should have let go of surprise and instead let the compelling narrative lead to a better, even if it had to be more conventional, ending.

The Black Rose is great at exploring the British criminal underworld and the families that run it. Adams was clearly inspired by such noted real-life firms like the Clerkenwell Crime Syndicate (AKA The Adams Family), The Arif Family, The Richardson  Gang, and The Kray Twins. The inner lives, rules,  standards, and family honor and sometimes disloyalty come into play within the fictional Saint and Larkin Families. The two families have been at war for generations. They have had blood for blood. Every time one member gets killed, another is struck down in retaliation.  They vie for ownership of the streets and the various illegal operations around town. Occasionally, they stop the fighting out of respect if important key members die or they join forces to fight a common enemy like the law or a rival firm. 

This time the Saints and Larkins have found a corker of an enemy: The O'Neill Crime Syndicate, a new group that originated from Ireland.

 Their main representative isn't a seasoned gangster. In fact, she is a fifteen year old girl, Roisin (pronounced Ro-sheen) O'Neil AKA Rose and The Black Rose. Rose befriends Chas Larkin, the sickly and mentally ill outcast of the Larkin family. When Rose and Chas begin their own crime spree, the Saints and Larkins realize that they have to put their differences aside to take on this new, psychopathic, and highly dangerous enemy.

The contrast between the Larkin-Saints and Chas and Rose are what makes the book. While no one in the book is particularly likeable, there are differences. The Larkins and Saints have been doing the criminal rivalry for decades so they are an integral part of the neighborhood. As much as these families hate each other, they realize that they are dependant upon one another.  

The Saints control the docks and the Larkins control the gambling houses, brothels, and other businesses around the docks. Both families are headed by tough as nails women in Bessie Saint and Alice "Nan" Larkin. They have their separate pubs in which they congregate-Dad's for Saints and Arrie's for Larkins. Two younger women in the families develop a friendship that turns into a romance, possibly a suggestion of a union at least by marriage. (Hey even the Hatfields and McCoys put down their guns temporarily when two of them married each other. Only to pick them up again after they got divorced.)

Both families know and respect the East End and the people that inhabit it, considering the London area their protectorate. They commit violence towards each other such as threatening rival family members (whoah to the Saint schoolchild who bullies a Larkin and vice versa. Rest assured, they will live to regret it.) and destroying their property. But they have rules and standards.

For example if an important family member is killed, they call off the fight long enough for a grieving process to continue and even have representatives attend the funeral. They both grieve when a mass death arrives (and in this book, it happens a lot.)

Their sometimes peace is symbolized by a crumpet that resides under a glass case in Dad's. The rules are that no one would but a Saint may touch it and the Larkins honor it until it gets mysteriously stolen in the beginning and the Larkins don't own up to it. This incident leads to a long chain of violence between the Saints, Larkins, the police, and the newcomer O'Neils which fractures the strained peace between the Saints and Larkins, especially when Chas and Rose become involved.

Chas meets Rose when she defends him from bully, Mickey Saint at school. Chas is often considered an outcast even within his own family, so in Rose he finds someone intoxicating and bewitching, a kindred spirit, and an understanding friend. However, there is a darker side to Rose's behavior as  she beats Mickey Saint practically to death. The two continue to go on a crime spree of wanton violent destruction, not caring whether it's Saint or Larkin property or neither. Rose and Chas act without conscience or scruples and they don't care who they hurt. In fact, Rose seems to delight in playing the two crime families against each other.

She also is able to carry Chas along. Playing on his loneliness, isolation, and his subconscious thoughts against the rest of his family and the Saints, Rose is able to put into action what he has wanted to do for some time. The more she acts, the more Chas follows her into that world and the more dangerous he becomes.

That's why she frightens the two families so much. Rose is less of a real person than an entity who feeds off of hatred and destruction. Unlike the two families who have a code and rules, Rose has none. She has no loyalty or allegiances. We hear about the O'Neills but don't see them except for Rose and there is even doubt whether they really exist or only exist because of this one girl. She is willing to do what the Saints and Larkins are not and that makes her more villainous and far more dangerous.

 It's as though Hannibal Lector was put into the middle of the Godfather. His psychopathic chaotic nature contradicts that of the Corleones and he would be considered a greater evil than them. That's how Rose is seen to the Saints and Larkins. She shakes up their world because she is not a part of it. She is beyond their control and almost unstoppable, unless the two families work together to end this two-person crime spree.

In fact the only thing that stops Rose is an ending that puts things to a screeching halt. I won't spoil it, but let's say it's one of those endings that seems to pull a twist out of thin air and a ridiculous one at that. It relies on an absolute suspension of disbelief that is beyond incredulous and requires a lot of questions to ask how it was possible to be pulled, how this twist could have been maintained when logistics would have prevented it, and the subsequent ramifications for what had occurred before the reveal. 

I don't want to say that Rose O'Neill is a good character who deserves a good ending, but she was built up to be so mesmerizing, so destructive, and so chaotic that this ending does her an injustice. A good antagonistic character deserves a better ending than that.

New Book Alert: The Secret Life of Sofonisba Anguissola by Melissa Muldoon; Wonderful Romantic Historical Fiction About A Brilliant Artist and Woman

 

New Book Alert: The Secret Life of Sofonisba Anguissola by Melissa Muldoon; Wonderful Romantic Historical Fiction About A Brilliant Artist and Woman

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: The more I work on this blog, the more I begin to agree with Virginia Woolf "I would venture to guess that Anon...was often a woman" not to mention Laurel Thatcher Ulrich that "well-behaved women seldom make history." 

Both of these legendary quotes about the absence of women in conventional historical, literary, and artistic accounts reveal why it was so difficult for women to be spoken of in the same breath as their male peers. Even now it is a wonderful experience to learn about and meet many of these women for the first time like the Yekineyen Parastina Jin, Elizabeth Craven, Sophie de Tott, Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson, Caroline Ferriday and the Ravensbruck Rabbits, Alouette Richard and Marthe Cnockeart, Elsa Schiaparelli , Danielle Casanova, Mai Politzer, and the other women of the French Resistance, Harriet Jacobs, Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin, Dorothy Vaughn. Mary Jackson, and Katherine Johnson, Ruth Handler, and Henry VIII's so-called lesser known wives, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard, and Kateryn Parr

 That's one of the things that I love about this job: reading historical fiction and nonfiction and discovering a new and zoutstanding name to be added to others. But sometimes, it's sad that many of these names are being read for the first time. I sometimes wonder how it is that many people don't already know of these courageous talented women? Why are they not automatically mentioned in the same breath as their male counterparts? Why did it take me 40+ years to learn Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson's name when I already knew Paul Revere's since I was 7?  In the decades since gender studies have been brought to light in academia, are women still lagging behind or are we finally catching up? Or to rephrase a meme, why is traditional white men's history and literature still a requirement and women's (and for that matter Black and Indigenous and Asian etc.) history and literature still an elective?

Modern publishing is taking great strides to correct that. Best Seller lists, libraries, and bookstores are flooded with titles of both fiction and nonfiction books about real life women from different time periods that are finally getting their stories told. We can't change that we haven't heard about them before, but we can change hearing about them from now on. Authors and historians will do their best to tell their story, while reviewers like me will do our best to share those stories even further.

Melissa Muldoon is one of those authors who is doing her bit to promote historic women in the arts. She has written a four part series about Italian Renaissance artists, patrons, and promoters, all of them female. These books are a memorable legacy about how art is seen and shared. Also that sometimes the female artist's soul can be revealed more in her work than in her personal life, when societal constraints sometimes forbade her from being open about her private life.

One of Muldoon's books is The Secret Life of Sofonisba Anguissola, a conventional historical fiction novel which tells about portrait painter Sofonisba Anguissola. In this brilliant detailed novel, an elderly Anguissola tells fellow artist, Anthony Van Dyck, the story of her life with one challenge: one of the details in her story is a lie. She dares Van Dyck (and the Reader) to guess which one. With this introduction, Muldoon weaves fact and fiction to tell a wonderful story about a spirited independent woman who embraced her talent before love and ended up getting both.

Anguissola begins by telling the origin of her name and proud family history. Her surname Anguissola came from an ancestor who was a soldier and warrior nicknamed Anguissola (the serpent) for his cunning nature. Her first name, Sofonisba came from a Carthaginian princess who was caught in a deadly love triangle. She also reveals her nickname, Sorella Leone (Sister Lion) as the oldest and most fiery of her and her four siblings. The name origins foreshadow Anguissola's future as an intelligent spirited woman caught up in the passions and combats of the day.

We also see how Anguissola's family influenced her path. Her parents were unconventional, believing that their daughters should be educated along with their son.

Not only does Sofonisba show a talent in art but her other sisters are adept in other fields: Minerva is a talented poet and writer, Elena is a gifted musician and composer, and Europa has a more mathematical mind. The passages where the sisters play act stories from history and mythology as well as their diverse skills are similar to the March Sisters in Little Women who use their talents for entertainment and future prospects (and coming from a similarly talented family who show our diverse skills in music, art, computer science, writing, veterinary medicine, drama, education, and finance, I find these chapters completely relatable).

Because of this upbringing, the Anguissola Sisters are more real and more defined than their younger brother, Asdrubale. He grows  into a spoiled brat who contributes nothing, except withholding funds and permission to wed, all with the lame declaration that he is the head of the family, though does nothing to earn that title.

Anguissola's education is dwelt upon as she studies under great artists like Bernardino Campi and Michelangelo Buonarroti learning how to perfect her portraits of the human body and add form, shadow, and texture to her work. One of the key moments that foreshadows Anguissola's genius is a painting that she makes as a gift for Campi. It is a pentimento, in which an artist's original underdrawing bleeds into the finished project in essence, a hidden message or detail within the original painting.  The portrait is a self portrait with an image of Campi painting her. Even more impressive is the detail in which Anguissola's hand is on top of Campi's so it is uncertain who is painting whom.

Anguissola also reveals a strong independent character when she resolves that she will devote herself to her art. Many women chose to marry, but her first love is her art and she has no intention of marrying until she is good and ready. In fact true to her resolve, she doesn't marry for the first time until she is in her mid-30's and in a situation where marriage is her only option.

By far the most intriguing chapters are the ones set in Spain where Anguissola is hired as a portrait painter/art teacher/spy for Elizabeth of Valois, wife of King Phillip of Spain and the eldest daughter of Henry II and Catherine de' Medici. As I mentioned before, I love how historical fiction (and nonfiction for that matter) authors will take a historic character and give them a different outlook, so you are experiencing different aspects of the same figure. 

I recently was acquainted with King Phillip through Philippa Gregory's The Queen's Fool and The Virgin's Lover, both of which focus on Phillip's unhappy marriage to Queen Mary Tudor and failed courtship and rivalry with Queen Elizabeth. In both books, he is seen as a feckless callous self-centered oaf who openly flirts with pretty younger women while married to Mary and verbally abuses her when she is unable to bear children. He proves to be no match for Elizabeth's cunning and sly nature. 

However, Muldoon's version of Phillip is an older and wiser man, happily married to Elizabeth and in mourning for his former wife, the Infanta Maria Manuela who died giving birth to his son, Don Carlos. He is older and sees the ramifications of his past, becoming a more mature thoughtful man. He is also constantly exasperated and frustrated by the behaviors of his son, Don Carlos, relying more on his associate Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, the Duke of Alba. Phillip considers Alba a better person to become his heir rather than the ruthless sadistic Don Carlos.

Elizabeth of Valois is seen as a sweet loving person who is so concerned for Anguissola's welfare when she recruits her as a spy that she tells her that all she has to do is listen as she paints and reports gossip. She is not to concern herself with notes, codes, or anything dangerous. Anguissola is just supposed to share any gossip or rumors that she hears. 

Also, as a Medici descendant, Elizabeth has a keen eye and appreciation for the arts which she reveals in her sisterly bond with the portrait painter. She is the type of sweet fragile good character that, even without the benefit of studying history, you just know something bad will happen to them even when you hope it doesn't.

While Phillip and Elizabeth and her family are diverse in their frequent portrayals in various media, I have yet to hear of an account of Don Carlos in which he is not written as a complete psychopath. While he may garner some sympathies because of his physical abnormalities such as scoliosis, it is his cruel and despotic nature that is often at play. In this Novel, he tortures young women whom he takes to bed for fun, openly lusts after his young stepmother, and violently attacks anyone who dares to disagree with him. Don Carlos is so sadistic and deplorable that many hope for his comeuppance before he finally receives it.

This is a tempestuous household that Anguissola finds herself in and finds protection not only from Elizabeth but from Alba. Unfortunately, Alba has a less altruistic side. He lusts after Anguissola and doesn't buy her devotion to art. His behavior becomes unstable and even borderline stalkerish when she becomes romantically involved with sea captain, Orazio Lemollino arranging his dismissal and fumes with obsessive jealousy when she finds herself pregnant and is forced to marry Fabrizio Pignatelli to save face.

Far from being a dry account of chronological events of Anguissola's life, Anguissola (and Muldoon of course) sprinkle the narrative with literary touches that make one doubt the veracity of her tale but enjoy it all the same. Remember the whole theme is finding the lie in Anguissola's story so of course she is going to embellish, fabricate, and play with her narrative. Of course with Anguissola as a narrator, she is going to give Muldoon permission to take liberties with her history.

Some of the events play into various genres. Anguissola's first meeting with Orazio is pure romance as they meet for the first time when they are young. They have a splendid time for one night walking the streets of Etruria and encouraging one another in their pursuits of art and seamanship. They don't get each other's names at first but Sofonisba can't get him out of her mind. Lo and behold, they reunite years later in Spain and begin a very passionate affair as two people that are similar in intelligence, drive, and passion. (Because of course, people always reunite in one country after encountering each other for one night, years ago in a completely different country.)

There is a whiff of murder mystery as a few months after Anguissola's marriage to the much older Pignatelli, he dies under mysterious circumstances. Pignatelli's spoiled temperamental daughter, Cinzia, suspects Anguissola while Anguissola herself is surrounded by sinister characters including Cinzia and both of her former paramours, Alba and Orazio, who arrive just in time for Pignatelli to conveniently be murdered.

Anguissola knows how to play her audience. She tells her story so well that Van Dyck (and the Reader) don't care about finding the lie. We just enjoy the fascinating time spent with this brilliant, vibrant, and talented woman that Muldoon captured through her excellent writing.