Mount TBR 11# Iris and Ruby by Rosie Thomas

I discovered two things last week. One was Reeces Pieces, which are delicious, and available in milkshake form. The other Was Rosie Thomas, who isn't, but is just as tasty.

I have no idea where I acquired Iris and Ruby from, but it is definitely second hand and doesn't has a price in the front cover so I'm guessing either a book swap, or PovAid. Wherever it is from, it's been on my shelf for yonks and I've nearly read it a few times, before passing over to something else.

Another one of those dual narrative historical/modern novels that have been the only things you could bloody read for the past ten years, this is a good example of how to do this genre right. It gets the generations sorted properly, and the characters reflect their generations. Ruby and Iris couldn't be more different. Iris of the forties reflects her upbringing of a middle class, intelligent, highly educated 22 year old  who is used to living away from home, who takes on a job in Cairo working for the military during the war. Ruby, the modern stubborn19 year old, is still recovering from a frankly horrible adolescence including (that doesn't get resolved to my satisfaction to be honest)  being abused by her uncle. Iris, after a life time looking after others at the expense of a relationship with her daughter, has returned to live out her old ago in Cairo. Her memory is fading and she is frightened and lonely, living a sheltered existence with her housekeeper. Ruby, fleeing her life in London and her interfering mother, runs away to Cairo on a whim and throws herself on the mercy of her grandmother, whom she has not seen in years.

The two soon become fast friends, and Ruby encourages Iris to tell her her memories of the war and her great love affair with Xan Molyneux. At the same time, Iris eases Ruby out of her hard city girl shell and she begins to discover life can be wonderful without drama and hardship. The two have many adventures together, and the book is a little all over the place, but it is a lovely, lovely read. The romance between Iris and Xan is very well done, and contrast nicely with the more modern straightforward affair between Ruby and a local man, Ash. In fact, this book is best read as an exploration of the differences between Then and Now, the heady days of British influence in Cairo, and the more modern city, where tourists abound and people live in the tombs of their families.

The book is also lovely in showing how families can drift apart,. but how sometimes that isn't a bad thing. Ruby's mother and Iris' daughter Lesley has her own journey that reflects that of many middle aged women-not wanting to let go of their children, unable to contemplate a life of their own without working towards the needs of others, be it a child or a man. I liked Lesley an awful lot and her subtle shift from frantic career mother and doting wife to strong independent person who will wear whatever damn trousers she chooses, was one of my favourite parts of the book.

All is all, I am so pleased I read this book. I've read another Rosie Thomas since then, and passed this one on to my G-Ma. If you like romance, dual narratives, comfy writing and a bit of drama, you need to get into her books. She is a fascinating person herself as well, which always helps!

4/5, lovely.

Mount TBR 9# Virgin Widow by Anne O'Brien

Anne O'Brien started off writing Harlequin historical romance books set in Regency England, and graduated to 'big' books based on historical characters in 2010. This, her first 'big' offering, was recommended to me by a mature student who loves historical fiction as much as I do, so much so I bought it first hand in a WHSmith Bad-Day-Bollocks-To-Everything-But-Books station binge last November. Knowing that I was going to be seeing Anne speak at the Leeds Big Bookend last weekend (CRACKING effort guys, WELL DONE) I bumped it up the pile, thinking I've read enough books set in the First World War for now...

Anne Neville is the youngest daughter of the Earl of Warwick-known as 'the Kingmaker', who I know from Philippa Gregory's The White Queen as a turncoat bastard whose jealousy extended the War of the Roses for another twenty years.

Anne O'Brien writes her heroine as feisty and spirited (because it's historical fiction and therefore ALL women are feisty and spirited) and more than a little romantic. Her Mills and Boon past comes through a bit, and it takes a while to get going, but when it does, this book is fun.

The problem is, this book is set in the Middle Ages, and I've read 10,000 pages of a popular fantasy series that might as well be set in the Middle Ages this year, so distinguishing between the two is a bit difficult. When Anne is married off to Joffrey, aka Edward of Lancaster, I couldn't get the Sansa comparisons out of my head, which made her eventual pairings with Richard of Gloucester, whom I'd instantly cast as Jon Snow (because, at the moment, all heroes are Jon Snow. Not only does the man know where to put it, he also knows what to do with it once it's there. You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to series 3). I was quite glad when Anne O'Brien suddenly turned Richard into Mr Darcy crossed with The Black Moth, as it made my imaginings of their longings all the easier on the brain.

Yes, this book is silly in places, the sex is very much 'he brought me to such heights' in-your-end-o and the characters are a little stock; but it is FUN, easy to read, and tells a different side to the Neville myth, although having Richard III (how many killings?) as a romantic hero is a little odd at first. I am truly gutted that Philippa Gregory has now got round to writing about this character, her Anne Neville is out in September. Pretty soon, however, they are going to run out of Medieval Babes and then we can all go back to what we do best and start reading about the Tudors again.

3/5 and a good beach read in the making, I've ordered her others.

TBR 6# 7# and 8# The Regeneration Trilogy

The Regeneration trilogy was publishing in the early-mid 90s, and immediately received great critical acclaim, with the second, The Eye In The Door, winning the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1993, and the final book, The Ghost Road, winning the Booker in 1995. When I mentioned I was reading them on Twitter I instantly had dozens of responses from people happily reminiscing reading them when younger, many of whom had studied them for A Level, and had an overall positive reaction.

I bought the three books for £4.99 on thebookpeople about three years ago, when I was going through a thebookpeople phase (they come in big red boxes! They are really really pretty!) and over the years have picked up a Pat Barker whenever I’ve seen one, despite having not actually read any of them, because they’re all a similar size, all really funky matched covers, and one day I thought I’d get round to them (I must have put Regeneration in the Book Club Tankard about three times, and I’m gutted it didn’t get picked as I reckon a book club would eat these books).

I started Regeneration last Tuesday in bed, finished The Eye In The Door on Monday night, and would have finished a lot earlier if I hadn’t had a weekend off reading Jilly Cooper, and finished The Ghost Road last night. I loved these books.

The trilogy begins in Craiglockheart military hospital, just outside of Edinburgh, in 1917. Seigfreid Sassoon, war hero, has just been declared unfit for service, after protesting rather publicly against the continuation of the war. Sassoon is not a pacifist, he is a leader of men who has seen too many of them die, and rather than risk him being court-martialled and lose an excellent officer, his friends connive to have him briefly sent for treatment for shell shock, hoping this will explain away his otherwise baffling belief that the war in which millions of people have died is somehow a bad thing.

Reading these books with modern non-violent lefty hindsight it is quite unbelievable to me that 100 years ago, more or less, it was considered so insufferable to disagree with war. My years of Stop The War and Ban the Bomb parenting have left me believing that people who think it perfectly permissible to blow up other people in the name of a country are the mad ones, not those who like me think this is an awful thing and should be stopped forever. After about a third of the book though, hindsight falls away; Barker’s pace and sense of place are so well observed and easy to fall into you not only feel that you are in the 1910s, you are from the 1910s, and what to a naughties girl seems absurd seems perfectly reasonable in 1917.

Sassoon is sent to Craiglockheart and put under the care of Dr (Captain) Rivers, who is an anthropologist and Freudian psychologist caring for many different patients introduced throughout the novels. Amongst them are Wilfred Owen, who becomes particularly attached to Sassoon, and one of the few fictional characters in the novel, Billy Prior, who becomes central to the trilogy.

Now because I’ve foolishly read all the books without pausing for breath and to review them, it’s quite hard for me to talk about Billy Prior in the context of this book alone. He is a working class lad made good because of a scholarship and pushy parenting, who is an officer without being a gentleman. Sex-mad, arrogant and severely damaged, not just from his experiences in France but with issues from his adolescence and childhood which we find out in the later books, in Regeneration I really didn’t like Billy. He meets and falls in love with a local factory girl, Sarah, but apart from that I thought he didn’t really add much to the novel whose main focus seemed to be on Sasson and his relationship with Rivers.

Psychology is an odd beast. I’ve read a bit, but not enough, on the subject to know that frankly Freud was talking out of his arse most of the time in my opinion, but the early developments in how people believed the mind worked are fascinating and this book combines the horrors or war (said in Movie-Trailer-Guy Voice THE HORRORS OF WAR) with serious consideration into how people thought that you should behave, vs how people actually behave. Barker somehow manages to cram everything into this trilogy, sex, gender, class, race, pacifism, socialism, colonialism and feminism. But it is psychology that really stands out, as Rivers re-evaluates his beliefs through his relationships with his patients.

Regeneration is an excellent, stand alone book, however the characters journey’s were obviously not over, so I eagerly started The Eye In The Door

The Eye In The Door is definitely my favourite of the trilogy. I started the book on the train to work one very sunny Thursday morning and the first chapter contains an incredibly graphic gay sex scene. Excellent. A lot more ‘political’ than Regeneration-which is amazing considering Regeneration was dealing with the whitewashing of dissent amongst the officers by the government in order to maintain the status quo of the War.

The Eye in the Door looks at pacifism, feminism and socialism and how the three were linked with homosexuality by a propaganda fuelled conservative hawk-like ruling class aiming to bring down left wing thought that was apparently ruining the Great British Public. That was seeing millions of its men being needlessly slaughtered. Again, Barker makes one aware of how much different modern thinking is, how much we rely on Captain Hindsight for our moral conscience. We know that the First World War did absolutely no good whatsoever, apart from breaking up some aspects of colonialism, it indirectly brought about Hitler’s rise to power and subsequently the Second World War and all the horror that went with that. Nowadays being homophobic is a hate crime, but this book made me really aware of our precarious our modern day thinking is, and how so many people’s lives were ruined before.

Billy Prior, who turned very rapidly into my favourite character in this book, is now working in Military Intelligence along with another of Rivers’ patients, Charles Manning, an acquaintance of Sassoon’s mentioned briefly in Regeneration who is being ‘cured’ for his homosexual impulses after being caught soliciting by the military police.

Prior is a fascinating character, not only by virtue of his dual nature-a working class grammar school boy and an accomplished officer, a survivor of abuse and former rent boy, and a loving boyfriend who seems to shag everyone in sight. His loyalties towards the people he grew up with, and the explorations of the slums of Salford, really made this book stand out. Although most of it wouldn’t make much sense without Regeneration, for me, this was the book it was worth reading the trilogy for (you know when people go ‘the first season isn’t really good but by season five it really picks up’ and you’re thinking ‘why did you spend 48 hours of your life getting to that point’? Yeah, totally get that now. Even though I’m still giving five stars to Regeneration).

The Eye In The Door is probably one of the best structured books I’ve ever read-up there with The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Barker isn’t writing this book, she is conducting it-she’s got the sheet music in front of her and knows exactly where to indicate a crescendo or a diminuendo. I properly properly sobbed at a chapter of this book, and yet at the end, by God I was hearing the theme music! I know there has been a film made of Regeneration, but DEAR TV PEOPLE, ADAPT THIS. And Shardlake, and Half of the Human Race. Stat.

I whizzed through this book, and know full well I’m going to have to re-read them all again properly, but I immediately started on The Ghost Road, because I couldn’t’ wait any longer to find out what happened to Billy.

The Ghost Road is a very different book. For the first time, the action is, well, in the action, set partly in Scarborough (hooray!) and partly in France. Interspersed throughout are the memories and dreams of a disillusioned and unhappy Dr Rivers, now working in a London hospital with his old partner Dr Head, with whom he performed the Regeneration of the Nerves experiments after which the trilogy is named. Rivers’ memories of his time as an anthropologist in the Pacific Ocean (I think, geography was never my strong point) were beautifully written, but I was constantly thinking ‘jog on, Bruce Parry, I want to know where Billy Prior’s at’.

The Ghost Road does however have the most comedy rushed-sex scene in the world in it, and brings back Wilfred Owen, whose poems I did at school (like everyone else ever) and loved. The last half of the novel also is written in diary format, which although is markedly different from the rest of the trilogy, also adds a certain pathos, as the reader is counting down the days until the end of the war. I did properly sob on completing the novel, but I wouldn't bother reading The Ghost Road on its own and to be honest I don't get why that, and not The Eye In The Door, was the one that won the Booker.

I loved reading this trilogy, even though it covers pretty hard hitting subjects, it taught me a lot and, along with Half of the Human Race, brought a more 'human' element to a time that can be written off as 'the past'. With the centenary of the First World War next year I can see this being a subject that is going to get a lot of press, and the Regeneration trilogy would be a great introduction to it, as well as to historical fiction in general.

5/5 to Regeneration, 5/5 to The Eye In The Door, 4/5 to The Ghost Road.

TBR 5# The Other Side of the Story

This might look a littel sparse or odd, but Blogger has changed and certain things no longer work on my Internets, so you'll have to bear with...

I've already talked at length about how much I love Marian Keyes, so I was shocked to discover this one hiding away at the back of my shelves that I hadn't read yet. Like most of her books, its a doorstopper, but I flew through it as I always do, her books being so utterably readable, and enjoyed, for the most part, all of it.

Three women, written, like This Charming Man, in different styles, which vary on how well they work, explore what happens when parents divorce, when careers go astray, friendships go horribly wrong, and the murky and fascinating world of publishing.

Gemma is an unlikable but bluntly funny events organisor, living a party lifestyle in Dublin, still grieving for her ex boyfriend Anton, who dumped her for her best friend Lily. When her father leaves her housewife mother for a younger woman Gemma moves back home and attempts to clear up the mess. Emailing her best friend in America with her woes, Gemma is flabbagasted when she sends her witty outlets of grief to agent JoJo, who offers her a book deal. JoJo also happens to be representing Lily, whose first novel has been a suprising hit.

JoJo is the best character in the book. An ex-New York Cop turned high-flying agent with a fabulous figure and Jessica Rabbit hair, this is wish fulfillment in fiction at it's greatest. She's also likable, and funny, and relatable, and having an affair with her very married boss. As we see JoJo going through the will-he-leave-her hell so common in chick lit her revalation that actually she might be worth a bit more than that is a refreshing change from the usual 'she meets someone better and is swept away'.

Lily and Gemma are alright, the book serves, but this isn't Marian's best and for warmth and wit rather than a grasping story that is a little too naughties for comfort, I'd stick to Last Chance Saloon.

TBR 4# Frenchmen's Creek

I bought this book first hand, from Waterstones, with my Christmas book tokens, after a long conversation on Twitter after reading the nonsense that is A Discovery of Witches, about true love and it's representation in fiction. I was recommended reading this by @sianushka, who has such a similar taste in fiction to me for it to be scary, and I loved every single second of the five hours it took me to read it.

Firstly, I am reclaiming this as a feminist love story, so this post is going to upset a lot of people who don't like the whole 'feminist' thing, but hey ho.

On the one hand, this is a simple but heart racing tale of swashbuckling pirates in Restoration England, adventure on the Cornish Coast, and romance abounding. On the other it is a cry for freedom, a treatise on captivity and an exploration of privilege and the role of women within a heteronormative society.

***SPOILERS***

Dona St Columb, rich, beautiful and bored, runs from her simple husband Harry to their ancestral home on the Cornish coast, taking with her her two small children and their trusty nurse. There she finds an almost abandoned house cared for by the solitary William, who it turns out (SPOILERS) is actually the servant of the notorious French pirate who has been sacking the locals along the coast with his motley Breton crew.

Dona meets the Frenchman, Jean-Benoit, and becomes fascinated by him and the pirate way of life, so different from her apparently stilted and repetitive London society one. She signs on to his ship and together they plunder the local gentry's treasure. Dona and the Frenchman fall in love, or rather admit of their love for each other, and have a torrid affair that ends quickly when Dona's husband, accompanied by the detestable rogue Lord Rockingham, who fancies himself Dona's amour.

Harry and the local gentry led by Lord Godolphin (best name in fiction, you Go Dolphin Go!) decide to capture the pirates and set a trap, but the Frenchman surprises them all at dinner and steals their jewellery and swords. During the commotion afterwards, Dona kills Rockingham after he tries to strangle her. Dona faints, and when she awakes discovers her love has been captured and is in Godolphin's castle, to be hanged the following Saturday.

Dona together with the trusty William hatch a plan for the Frenchman's escape by pretending to be the doctor delivering Lady Godolphin's baby, and they all three flee to the coast. Dona realises she must abandon all hope of happiness with the Frenchmen for the sake of her children, and he returns alone to his ship, leaving her to pick up the pieces of her old life.

The writing in this book is incredible. I grew up on a coast line and Du Maurier's description of the cliffs, the cries of the gulls, the smells, the wind, everything is spot on and so evocative of the sea. The sense of place, but also the sense of time in the novel is so well done; like the best historical fiction she doesn't overload you with information obviously gleaned from hours of research and thusly incredibly boring, but creates a believable set up of characters and situations living in a particular place that just happens to be five hundred years ago.

What makes this book stand out more than anything though is the love story. This isn't some stupid patriarch clasping his woman to his chest to make him feel superior; this is a person and another person wanting each other through mutual respect, lust, and passion. The Frenchman doesn't belittle Dona, he doesn't tell her what to do, he doesn't tell her she's been brave, when he helps her he's not showing off or patronising her he's actually helping her. He doesn't even lift her off the ship. All this makes him frankly hotter than Librarian Ryan Gosling.

It's so rare to find an adult love story I can understand and sympathise with. Having never really properly been in love myself though this book made me a little sad. Du Maurier describes Dona's feelings as being one of completeness, like a missing part of her has been restored upon meeting the Frenchman, and I just don't feel like that. I'm whole, I'm a complete thing, I don't feel like my 'other half' isn't here, I'm happiest on my own and always have been. Although this makes me a little sad in a whimsical sort of way, it's also reassuring to know that I'm not spending my life not being "myself" because I don't need a partner.

I loved how the affair between them comes about, the build up to their first 'date', honestly that's twenty pages of the most understated erotic writing I think I've ever read. I love how Dona is in turmoil because part of her wants to throw herself on him whilst the other part is embarrassed about her feelings and is shy. I also love how they are grown ups. I was really looking forward to an adult love story with A Discover of Witches, and in Frenchman's Creek I found one-she is 29, he presumably a similar age and they are Proper Adults with Proper Adult Feelings.

Now, the feminist thing.

This book is about captivity. Dona describes herself to Harry as a bird in a cage, and in London she is, albeit a large and gilded one. Comparatively Dona is incredibly privileged, a fact she never discovers in the novel, and in the first chapter I hated her. She abuses her servants and her horses and upsets her children.

Dona's need for a life outside of the norms of her society shows how 'othering' people creates nothing but bad things. Giving people 'roles' and not letting them be fluid things means Dona is frustrated and possibly depressed. Gender roles are rigid, Dona thinks often of her wish to 'be a boy', though whether this is literal or a reference to her unhappiness with the constrictions placed on her own gender is not properly examined within the text-though she does not recognise that patriarchy is just as constrictive to men as is it to women this again is privilege at play.

Dona's eventual giving up of the love of her life is due to her love for her children, a love she cannot help and acknowledges only when she imagines them dead. It is also restrictive to her youngest child, James, as she rarely thinks about his elder sister. This could be again emblematic of societies' preference for male children, so much ingrained that Dona invests in it herself-maybe showing why she wishes to be 'a boy'-because boys are better? The Frenchman and Dona discuss the limitations of women due to unplanned pregnancy several times-it is one of the main reasons the Frenchman gives for not having a wife because he would never be able to be 'free'. The comparative freedoms of the Frenchman and Dona, he always on the run from the law and she never being able to do what she wants (even though she is...just not in the way she wants. She's a rich titled woman with a million more options than most) are marked and frequently examined in the text. If Dona had access to reliable contraception or safe and stigma free abortion her life would be so incredibly different. She is also unable to divorce Harry. These things though are never even thought about, which is a brilliant device in placing the book in the time-why would a Restoration woman of high birth even consider contraception until she needed it? Amber St Clare is a village girl who procures a miscarriage because that is part of her life, but never would be for Dona St Columb.

This book made me think an awful lot, that is an impressive feat for an historical romance/adventure, and I highly recommend reading it, if only for the beauty of the writing. As unlike Rebecca as it's possible to be, I'll definitely be investigated Du Maurier's other work now!

TBR 3# Sidetracked

This is a bit of a cheat because I didn't actually buy this book, in fact technically I nicked it. When I started watching Wallander in the Autumn of 2009 and became instantly obsessed with all things Swedish, starting with Ola Rapace (google him and thank me later), I spoke on Twitter about wanting to read the books and the lovely @LegalBizzle kindly lent me a big bag of them, which I then failed miserably to return. But bless him, he's so lovely (and furry) he donated them to the TSL. So I've been making my way through them and dumping them in the Suitcase once I've read them.

Sidetracked is the fifth in the Wallander series, which I have read hopelessly out of order. I read The Dogs of Riga and The White Lioness first, because they hadn't been made into English TV adaptations, and the I read One Step Behind because I enjoyed the Swedish adaptation so much.

Sidetracked is an incredibly bleak story, including trafficking, rape, scalping, suicide by burning yourself alive, axes through the head, roasting people, incest and police cuts. As with the other Wallander books, Mankell uses the plot to speak about the disintegration of Swedish society and the break-down of the hippy dreams of the 1950s. Political corruption, greed, misogyny and racism haunt the characters who all end up dead in the sleepy seaside town of Ystad.

Wallander himself is probably the most well developed of the detectives I've met so far in the challenge, but having already read and watched him a lot over the last couple of years, he's an old friend rather than a new fun acquaintance.

In Sidetracked, his relationship with her father becomes deeper as he deals with him illness. This touching example of how middle aged men cope is lightly but beautifully done. He also shows himself to be a complete coward when it comes to women; he can handle a treble murder investigation but not ringing his girlfriend. Wallander is one series I really wish I'd read in order as seeing characters now that aren't in later books was weird.

Mostly, this book was gruesome. Amazingly written, though you do spend a long time thinking 'just get on with it, man'. I'm not a massive fan or detective dramas where you know who's done it before the end of the book, and in this one we know from the beginning. Dramatic irony, I've always thought, works better on stage than in print.

If you're never read a Wallander, start with Faceless Killers. The Dogs of Riga and The White Lioness were a bit dull, but only because they were so heavily focused on Swedish politics in the early 90s which I know literally nothing about, and One Step Behind is incredible and still my favourite. Sidetracked is a very very very good book, but isn't the best. And Ola Rapace's face isn't on the cover.

Mount TBR 2# Forbidden Fruit: From the letters of Abelard and Heloise

I'm including this book, which I bought Many Many Moons ago as part of a Penguin 'Great Loves' set that was going cheap on TheBookPeople, in my Once Upon A Time Reading Challenge. Although technically not a folktale, as Abelard and Heloise did actually exist, the story of their great forbidden love affair shaped the Medieval Courtly Love tradition and influenced songs and culture across Europe for hundreds of years. To be honest, I was shocked they were French, having believed for years that this was an English love story, which shows how cultures shape each other and how little I actually know about where the stories come from.

Peter Abelard was the eldest son of a Bretton knight, who gave up his rights of inheritance to study and became one of the most respected, if controversial, philosophers of 12th century Europe. Heloise was his pupil, and later his lover. When the affair was discovered, Heloise's uncle, Abelard's patron, forced them to marry before sending his men to castrate Abelard in the night. The lovers separately joined religious orders, and Abelard continued to teach and publish his writings. He was accused variously of heresy and stirring up trouble within the Church, exposing corruption in the religious houses he belonged to and questioning the Holy Trinity. He was tried for blasphemy and his works were burned in front of him. Eventually he was forced to flee the religious community he had set up, asking Heloise, who was now a prioress, to run it for him. He remained on the run from authority for the rest of his life.

The letters in this abridged text are written firstly from Abelard to 'a friend' whilst he is on the run, describing his life's history, the affair with Heloise and it's aftermath, and his trials and tribulations. There then follow a series of letter between Heloise and Abelard in which she begs him for comfort and he tells her to pray for him, as he is sure to die. I read this book in a day, sitting in various pubs, and had a great time doing so, as the three pints of porter only aided my utter utter hatred of Abelard and disgust at the text; if I'd had anyone to rant with, I'd have been ranting my brains out.

Firstly; Abelard is a knob. He could be the dictionary definition for the opposite of self effacing. He repeatedly showers himself with compliments and his apparent wisdom and logic knows no bounds. He excels at everything; when an adversary points out he is arguing about a text he has not studied his answer is that it doesn't matter, because he is so incredibly clever he doesn't need to study everything. He reads the entire Bible in a week and is suddenly the world's greatest Spiritual Scholar. The man is infuriating and also a massive racist, I don't give a shit if he's a 12th century monk.

His opening description of Heloise starts promising, she is up there on beauty but top of the league on intelligence. He likes her for her brain. This pleased me muchly until I realised that he actually likes her for her reputation, having never met the woman. He has decided that he might has well be shagging somebody and she sounds like a safe bet. PLUS he comes with an arrangement with her Uncle that he can be given sole charge of her education, including punishing her. So even if she doesn't want him back, he can beat her into submission! Nice!

And Heloise puts up with this shit. She goes on and on and on about how unworthy she is of him, how marrying her will damage his reputation. There is one very slight girl-power moment where she argues against the chains of marriage, and that's all well and good, but she repeatedly asks him to confirm that he loves her, rather than just lusts after her which is what everybody thinks and what he obviously does, and then continues to put up with his crap years after they've stopped being together! It's like, girl, I know you're options are limited and all that, but you're a very very clever, powerful woman who rules your own religious community. Cut your ties and be done with it!

He writes her love songs, he makes her name famous, he ruins her reputation, and then he fucks her over for his precious career. And this is the greatest love story of the middle ages? Purlease, give me the She Wolf of France ANY day of the week!

I suppose this shows that you can't look at something 700 years old with modern eyes without being frustrated. Is there such a thing as hindsight privilege? All I know is, if this is the great love we're all supposed to aspire to, I'll stick to being single thanks!

Purchased: The Book People, at some point in 2009.

Once Upon A Time Reading Challenge 2012

For the past two years, I've taken part in the brilliant Once Upon A Time Reading Challenge. This challenge encourages readers to try something new by expanding on the genres they read, and for a reader like me who tends to stick to what I know I'll like (historical fiction, girly romance novels, and Scandinavian Crime) the challenge of reading a fantasy/SF, a myth, a folktale and a fairytale in three months is always a good one.

This year, because I'm woefully behind on my Mount TBR Challenge I'll be combining the two. Again, I have no excuse but I work in a library and we've been getting some incredibly tempting fiction in for the past month or so-hey at least I'm doing my stats some good, might be failing on my blog, but work loves me!

I've had some mixed results from doing this challenge, but hopefully this year will finally read some fantasy that doesn't make me foam at the mouth, and finally finish Angela Carter's fairy tales.

Happy Reading!
BookElf xxx

Mount TBR 1# The Shadow of the Moon by M.M.Kaye

So I know having my first TBR challenge post at the end of February is pretty poor showing on my part, but I have many and numerous excuses for this, mostly along the lines of a)a lot of shit went down for me in the first two months of 2012, most of it for the positive and b)it's not like I haven't read anything, I just haven't read anything I already owned. YOU try working in three libraries and having as many booky friends as I do, and then having a birthday and be given shed loads of Amazon vouchers (thank you) and then reading books you already owned! It's blumming hard, I tell thee!

But what a start to the challenge this was. I gushed heavily over M. M. Kaye's epic doorstopper romance The Far Pavilions, that I found in PovAid for 50p back in 2010, and I've been wanting to read more of her stuff ever since. I found The Shadow of the Moon, her 1958 romance reprinted on the back of The Far Pavilions success in the late 70s in PovAid last summer and once again snapped it up. However, it was, again, epically long, so sat on my shelf looking pretty for months. This February I've been in desperate need of cheap romance novels, however, and after binging on Cooper this tome was calling out to me.

Set for the most part during the 1857 (I think) Indian Mutiny and the months preceding it, this book is beautifully written, gripping from the off and that great mix of romance and terror that made The Far Pavilions so readable.

Winter de Ballesteros (best name ever. Fact) is the orphan heiress who is abandoned by her stuffy English aristocratic family to a arranged marriage with a gold digging bigot when she is 11. Travelling to India to be with her husband as a beautiful seventeen year old, she is placed under the care of dashing Captain Alex Randell. Alex is seemingly the only British officer to notice, or care, that the rule of the East India Company is failing and that the people of the Kingdoms of Hind are spoiling for a fight. Winter, obviously, falls for Alex and together they must survive the bloody fallout of years of incompetent and disrespectful colonialist rule.

Alex is my favourite part of the book. One of those heroes it's impossible not to fall a little bit in love with (which I have done, massively), he's such a good, well-rounded character that he lifts the lesser parts of the book-including the slightly 2D portrayals of the Indian characters-up to soaring heights. Constantly banging his head on a brick wall over the behaviour of his bigoted, ridiculous superiors including the horror that is Conway Barton, Winter's husband, Alex is conflicted within himself to the point of almost changing sides. He doesn't believe in Britain's Divine right to rule, but seeing as they are there believes it must be down to the best of their ability. Like Ashton in The Far Pavilions, Alex uses the disguise of a native Indian, gets to know the local people and their customs and has many varied adventures throughout the book. He is honorable and well mannered and in real life it would be hard not to just launch myself at him.

The romance side of the book is subtly done. We see both Winter and Alex's point of view and what I loved was how instinctive their feelings towards each other were. Alex doesn't moon over his love, he has far bigger things on his mind, but when he collapses in her arms it's real and you can feel the passion there. Winter is a wonderful heroine, though a little bit Stock Feisty for my tastes, and her back story, which takes up the first 200 pages or so, is fascinating.

Writing wise, I couldn't fault this book. Her use of colour, of smell, the way she brings the world around her to life, it's so sumptuous. She makes it seem so easy, parts you can feel her pen gliding over the page. The book is about racists, and includes a long of language that made me wince, so that combined with a slightly rushed and clunky ending (she could have easily stretched the last fifty pages of 200 or so and it wouldn't have felt like too much, that's how stunning the writing is) takes this down to a four, rather than the five stars it otherwise thoroughly deserves.

Any romance fans out there, get into M.M. Kaye! As far as I can figure out, she's out of print, which is a huge shame. With a bit of an edit (some of the turns of phrase are very very 50s) this could be a best seller now. Beautiful book and I'm really really glad I've finally read it.

Purchased PovAid, Summer 2011

* * * * *

Ongoing Challenges Table of Contents 

* * * * *

Full Table of Contents 

Reading Mojo, Mount TBR Reading Challenge

Recently, I've started to feel a little like I've lost my reading mojo. Whilst my fellow LeedsBookClubbers happily rave about the books they're loving, the last few weeks I've found nothing that really, y'know, gripped me.

I've got a massive pile of half-reads that I've hidden under my bed to stop me feeling so guilty about them. I even tried re-reading my favourite book (that I've requested for World Book Night, keep those fingers crossed people) I Capture The Castle, but still came out feeling blah.

I am loving AR's Cannongate Challenge posts, and feel like a good challenge is something I need to really bring the spark back into my reading. So I'm signing myself up to a couple.

The first is the Mount TBR Reading Challenge, run by (appropriately named) Reader's Block. I have a real addiction to buying books, and the book swaps I run and the libraries I work in usually mean I end up with a ridiculous TBR list. I'd say a good third to a half of the books on my shelves at home I haven't actually read, which makes me feel awful, so this challenge, no loans, no new buys, just books bought prior to 2012 seem perfect to me, and I'm going to start it now.

I'm going for the Mt. Ararat option, of 40 books from my TBR pile, because that seems like an attainable number, and also I like the name Ararat. I know what I'm like and the buying/borrowing/book-clubbing ain't gonna stop!

Anyone caring to join me, please feel free!

Happy Reading

BookElf xxx