A Crimson Warning (Lady Emily, #6)

A Crimson Warning
by Tasha Alexander
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780312661755
Series: Lady Emily Mystery #6
Publication Date: August 7, 2011
Pages: 352
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Minotaur Books

Newly returned to her home in Mayfair, Lady Emily Hargreaves is looking forward to enjoying the delights of the season. The delights, that is, as defined by her own eccentricities—reading The Aeneid, waltzing with her dashing husband, and joining the Women's Liberal Federation in the early stages of its campaign to win the vote for women. But an audacious vandal disturbs the peace in the capital city, splashing red paint on the neat edifices of the homes of London's elite. This mark, impossible to hide, presages the revelation of scandalous secrets, driving the hapless victims into disgrace, despair and even death. Soon, all of London high society is living in fear of learning who will be the next target, and Lady Emily and her husband, Colin, favorite agent of the crown, must uncover the identity and reveal the motives of the twisted mind behind it all before another innocent life is lost.

SO much better than the last one. Emily has stopped wallowing and is almost the same character I grew fond of in the first two books. She’s still a bit more obedient than I’d like, but I have to remember this is the Victorian age and no wife would get away with telling her husband to pull his head out of his ass.

Jeremy and Ivy are back in this book too. Ivy doesn’t do much for me either way, but I do love Jeremy’s wit and silliness. The author inserts journal entries from Ivy throughout the chapters that honestly added nothing to the story for me. She did this in her last book, using Emily’s mother-in-law’s journal, and that worked as a way of getting to know the woman in a way we wouldn’t have realistically been able to by relying on the narrative. But here… meh.

The plot though… the plot was good. I thoroughly enjoyed this story line and found it extremely relevant given society’s re-discovered fondness for public shaming. The mystery behind who was behind it all was done well enough; I neither knew who the culprit was nor was I surprised when it was revealed. The motivation was rather Machiavellian in the end and I enjoyed it.

This one has restored my enjoyment in the series; there are assuredly better examples of its kind out there, but so far this series is holding its own just fine.

Dangerous to Know (Lady Emily, #5)

Dangerous to Know
by Tasha Alexander
Rating: ★★★
isbn: 9780312383794
Series: Lady Emily Mystery #5
Publication Date: January 1, 2010
Pages: 306
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Minotaur Books

I liked this book the least of all 5 books so far. The series presents a heroine with modern ideas in Victorian times. She’s rich of course, smart, independent and has a husband who supports these scandalous ideas of equality. They investigate mysteries together, along with one or two friends they’ve made along the way. It’s been fun, mostly.

Until this one. This book would have been about 30% shorter and less irritating if someone had just given Emily a flog at the beginning of the book and told her to have at herself. Events in the previous book have given her a rude awakening about what equality might mean–rightly enough–but she positively wallowed throughout this book and didn’t begin to resemble the character I’d enjoyed previously. Colin too was something of an ass.

So, the story lumbered and dragged for me. I disliked pretty much everybody, and I was certain who the killer was. But then, towards the end, the last 25%, the story got exciting. I still pretty much disliked everyone, but events picked up pace dramatically and I was quite swept away in the excitement of it all. Add to that I was totally wrong about who the killer was (although I get points for proximity) and the book raised itself up to 3 stars instead of the two I had planned to give it.

Here’s hoping everyone pulls their sticks out in book 6.

Silent in the Grave (Lady Julia Grey, #1)

Silent in the Grave
by Deanna Raybourn
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780778324102
Series: Lady Julia Grey #1
Publication Date: March 1, 2007
Pages: 511
Publisher: Mira

I bought this book because I was quite enjoying Tasha Alexander’s historical mystery series and I’d heard from several corners that this series was even better. When I received my copy, I was rather taken aback by its size: 500+ pages presented a brick of a mystery and admittedly, it intimidated me enough that it had worked its way towards the bottom of my TBR.

Then, a couple of nights ago the book I was reading wasn’t working for me, and this book started shouting ‘read me!’ so loudly I could hear it down the hallway (not really) and I’m happy to say not only was it monumentally better and more interesting that the one I had been reading, but that the 500 pages fairly flew by.

I’m a little bit in love with the March family; they all sound mad as hatters. Perhaps that’s a strong way to put it, but they are all decidedly eccentric. Lady Julia’s subtle, dry humour had me smiling throughout and chuckling outright whenever she talked about The Ghoul (I’m not going to explain The Ghoul – I’ll just say it’s not supernatural – because explaining would ruin it, I think).

But parallel to this delicious humour is a much more confronting murder mystery that starts off very slowly (not boring) and gains momentum as the ending nears. Readers who are choosing historical mysteries because they tend to stick with sanitised world views are going to be really disappointed; this book delves into the less conventional and seedier sides of Victorian society.

I’ve already indicated my affection for Lady Julia and her family. The only other real main character is Nicholas Brisbane and I’m not quite sure what to think of him. He makes a good hero of the alpha sort, I suppose, and he’s certainly a ‘still-waters-run-deep’ character, but while I didn’t dislike him, the author never really showed me anything particularly likeable about him either. Tragic, yes, attractive, yes. Warmth and humour….notsomuch. Still, intriguing potential.

The murder mystery was good, although I had guessed the villain long before the denouement. The author did get me to flip suspects for a few brief pages, but ultimately I went back to my first guess. I don’t know if it was because of this, but the actual climatic scene felt oddly anti-climatic. Maybe rushed? I suspect there might have been a nuance or two I missed and a couple of small unanswered questions kept that scene from working for me.

Vision in Silver (The Others, #3)

Vision in Silver
by Anne Bishop
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780451465276
Series: The Others #3
Publication Date: March 3, 2015
Pages: 400
Genre: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: NAL Hardcover

This book wasn’t quite as engrossing as the first two, which is both bad and good. There’s nothing like getting sucked into a book so thoroughly you lose all sense of time and place as it pertains to reality. But books like that can be exhausting, and I wasn’t disappointed that I was able to put Vision in Silver down long enough to eat and sleep. That’s not to stay my husband didn’t get an ‘I will hurt you’ glare whenever he attempted to interrupt my reading.

In each of the first two books, the stories each centered on one big, mounting crisis that resulted in a showdown towards the end between humans and others. This book felt more like a bridge used to setup a much larger conflict that will carry through into future books. We get a lot of information (sometimes repetitively – a first for this series), a lot of background and learn more about how the hierarchy of the others works. We find out what the HFL’s larger purpose is, although I don’t understand how any human with a brain in their heads thought they would accomplish it. We’re also given reason to think that perhaps not all the cassandra sangue are doomed to a life of cutting.

I frankly missed seeing the Elementals bring down their wrath, although Fire was impressive as a character. The final conflict in this book sneaks up on you; there’s not really any build up to it at all, and the results of that conflict are rather anticlimactic compared to the first two books, but the result of the others finding out what humans have been doing to each other in order to defeat the others leaves a curious tension for future books: no pressure on the Lakeside community or anything. Nope, no pressure at all.

Anybody hear anything about the fourth one yet? 😉

[PopSugar 2015 Challenge: A Book with a color in the title.]

All the President’s Menus (White House Chef Mysteries, #8)

All the President's Menus
by Julie Hyzy
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780425262399
Series: White House Chef Mystery #8
Publication Date: January 6, 2015
Pages: 294
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime

Due to a government sequester, entertaining at the White House has been severely curtailed. So executive chef Olivia Paras is delighted to hear that plans are still on to welcome a presidential candidate from the country of Saardisca—the first woman to run for office—and four of that nation’s top chefs.

But while leading the chefs on a kitchen tour, pastry chef Marcel passes out suddenly—and later claims he was drugged. When one of the visiting chefs collapses and dies, it’s clear someone has infiltrated the White House with ill intent. Could it be an anti-Saardiscan zealot? Is the candidate a target? Are the foreign chefs keeping more than their recipes a secret? Once again, Olivia must make sleuthing the special of the day…

A good read, though not as good as the previous four books. This time Olivia is dealing with a conspiracy tied to a foreign delegation of chefs as well as a government sequester that has left her short a couple of chefs.

I really enjoy Ms. Hyzy’s writing; she doesn’t write to formula and she has interesting ways of changing up her characters’ lives. She’s dropped a bomb into Olivia and Gav’s marriage that I can see massive possibilities for taking the series in a whole new direction at some point in the future. I liked that a lot. I can see Cyan’s future dovetailing nicely with this change as well. Nothing might come of any of it but at least she has a veteran cozy reader speculating about the “what if?”’s instead of yawning and thinking “yeah, yeah, cozy plot #4”.

I suspect I didn’t love this one as much as previous books because a lot of it centered around a country that the author necessarily had to fabricate and she did such a good job of creating it without aping any existing countries that it made it rather hard for me to invest myself in it. But the ending was great – I loved that final scene at Blair House (although Olivia’s final scene with the President wasn’t much of a surprise to me; it seemed the only plausible scenario).

The series started off slow for me, but exploded onto my top 10 list at book four, and this book only solidifies my attachment to Olivia, Gav and the rest of the crew. I’m looking forward to the next book.

Persuasion

Persuasion
by Jane Austen
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781435127432
Publication Date: January 1, 2012
Pages: 228
Genre: Fiction, Literature
Publisher: Barnes and Noble

Well, this is where I wish I paid more attention in my English Lit. classes. Then I could use this review to wax lyrical (or at least literate) about the exposition, the rising action, the climax and the ultimate resolution of Anne Elliot’s story in Persuasion. Unfortunately, I didn’t pay attention in class (or attend class very often) so here I am floundering for a way to adequately discuss one of Jane Austen’s finest. (Does this make me a cautionary tale?)

I’m going to start by saying I still like Pride & Prejudice better. I’ve heard many people describe Persuasion as Austen’s most mature work – which makes sense because it was also her last – and I can definitely see the truth in that. But Persuasion lacks the humour, the lightness, of her earlier works, although it still retains all of the bite.

If Miss Austen wrote from life she lacked any positive parental role models. In every book of hers I’ve read, at least one parent was vapid, shallow, vain, neurotic, dyspeptic, a hypochondriac or a combination of any of the aforementioned. I’d argue it’s the single uniting factor in all her work (although I’ve yet to read her juvenilia or Sanditon). Anne Elliot gets the rawest deal of all of JA’s MC’s – her family has no affection for her at all. She is the Cinderella in their lives: useful only for propping them up when they’re down, being the person applied to for attentiveness, while never receiving any attention or affection in return.

Thank goodness for Lady Russell; only Lady Russell persuaded Anne to cut off her engagement to the man she loved 8 1/2 years ago because his prospects were not guaranteed. Now that man is back and he’s rich. He might also be a tiny bit bitter about having his heart broken all those years ago.

I enjoyed the story; I definitely liked it more than Emma (sorry mom) and probably more than Northanger Abbey. Maybe. It’s a more staid, more serious work than the others. What little frivolity there is ends in disaster and is used to illustrate a defect in character. As I prefer characters who ‘dearly love to laugh’, Elizabeth Bennett holds pride of place on my favorite Austen list – but Persuasion and Anne Elliot aren’t far behind.

(NB: While the edition information is correct for this review, the cover is not. And I hate not having the correct cover on my reviews.)

Seventh Grave and No Body (Charlie Davidson, #7)

Seventh Grave and No Body
by Darynda Jones
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781250045645
Series: Charlie Davidson #7
Publication Date: October 4, 2014
Pages: 322
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Disclaimer: This review will be biased and unbalanced. I have love for this series and my objectivity suffers proportionally. I truly left off 1/2 star just because I’m certain there are probably flaws (all books have them) but my love for Charlie and the gang have blinded me to whatever they might be.

So a couple of days ago I was feeling rather sorry for myself. I injured my back – nothing serious, truly; just enough to put a hitch in my gitalong and make me feel mopey and old. My husband came home and put a book package on the coffee table. After I pointed out the cruelty of putting a new book on a surface that was just out of my reach (can’t bend down, of course), he handed it to me and upon opening it discovered my copy of Seventh Grave and No Body. Proof that God takes pity on me, because I NEVER get my pre-ordered books on release day; living on the tail end of the world means everything always takes days later to arrive than it does for the U.S./Europe.

Suddenly my back injury was a spend-all-day-reading free card, and boy howdy did I use it.

So in the last book prophesies about Charlie’s existence and her role in the final battle became clearer. In this one, Charlie starts finding out what she’s truly capable of. Reyes always told her she was more powerful than any other being, but Charlie always seemed to view it as rhetoric. Now she finds out it isn’t, but that she can still get her ass handed to her when she leasts expects it. Circumstances are also forcing her to confront her immaturity too; big changes are coming and she can’t keep living in the shallow end of the maturity pool. I always loved Charlie – even when her sass and snark were obvious coping mechanisms – but I quite like the (only slightly) more mature version too. She still hides behind sarcasm and smart-ass banter, but she’s also utterly selfless and has a firm grip on what’s important.

As with all the books, there are several story lines running simultaneously; human mysteries as well as mythical ones. I like this style – it keeps things moving and avoids that mid-book bogging down that sometimes happens. My only complaint: one of the story lines (a small one that has no meaning to the overall plot of this book) doesn’t get wrapped up and I wanted to know what happened. The sub-plot setting reminded me of the X-Files episode ‘Closure’ and I was sorry not to find out how it ends.

I’m not going to say more – although I could babble ad naseum – because I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone. Things happen. Big things. Suffice it to say that I loved reading it, I’m sorry it’s over, and how many days until book 8?

Tears of Pearl (Lady Emily, #4)

Tears of Pearl
by Tasha Alexander
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780312383701
Series: Lady Emily Mystery #4
Publication Date: January 1, 2009
Pages: 307
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: William Morrow

I was tempted to give another 3.5 stars to this book, but I think personal bias might be getting in the way on this one, so I’ll err on the side of optimism.

The whole of this book takes place in Constantinople, during Lady Emily’s honeymoon. They become embroiled in a murder investigation that involves the Sultan’s harem and the son of an Englishman.

I’m of two minds about the setting; I’ve never found sultans or harems romantic or intriguing or even interesting. But I’ve always been fascinated by the advanced learnings of the Arabian culture. So while I found the whole sultan/harem thing a giant yawn, I did enjoy the glimpses of beauty, culture and education – especially on the part of the Turkish women (although I was struggling to keep track of who belonged to which palace). The author writes a fair story: she doesn’t deny the harems are at their base a form of slavery, but she is quick to point out that the English system wasn’t a model of feminism either; I thought she did a very good job comparing each against the other.

The murder mystery itself was again diabolical, but this time I knew the killer from the start. The motivation was a complete mystery until it’s revealed to Lady Emily, so my sureness as to the villain didn’t detract from my investment in the story.

A Fatal Waltz (Lady Emily, #3)

A Fatal Waltz
by Tasha Alexander
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9780061174223
Series: Lady Emily Mystery #3
Publication Date: January 1, 2008
Pages: 296
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: William Morrow

I’ll admit, I read a short story the author posted online about Emily and Colin that takes place immediately after A Fatal Waltz, before I read this book. The short story was replete with spoilers, so I knew, in essence, how this book ended. I don’t mind spoilers and I’ve been known to seek them out, but in this instance, it might have backfired a little.

A Fatal Waltz stalled a bit for me about midway. This could be because of the spoiler-effect or it could be that the story just didn’t intrigue me enough to hold my attention. I’m not sure. Either way, I enjoyed the book; I looked forward to picking it up and I got a bit irritable when I was interrupted. It just didn’t flow as quickly as the first two did.

A character from A Poisoned Season is murdered in this book (good riddance – he was vile) and Ivy’s husband is arrested and thrown into Newgate. Sensitive papers are missing and the victim had apparently received a warning/threat from Vienna before he was killed, but that too is missing. Lady Emily hies off to Vienna to try to find the person who sent the note, and it’s here the story might have first lost me, because it never seemed reasonable that Lady Emily had enough information to know where to start looking.

Lady Emily’s goals start merging/interfering with Colin’s assignment in Vienna and the two find themselves working together for the first time. But really, I think this entire plot construction was built around the romantic conflict of Lady Emily meeting one of Colin’s past um… dalliances. One who was rather disinclined to be pushed into the past. Ultimately, as I write this review, I think this is why the book wasn’t a 4-star or higher read for me: I’d bet a dollar that the author came up with the romantic conflict first and created a murder plot to justify it second.

Speaking of the murder plot – it was ultimately a very good one. I liked the way the author presented the pieces of the puzzle to both the reader and Lady Emily; I just wish it wasn’t so obfuscated by the shenanigans in Vienna.

I told myself I was going to take a break after this book and start reading some of the other books in the Pile, but when push came to shove last night, I picked up Tears of the Pearl and dove back into Colin and Lady Emily’s world. Guess I’m just not quite ready for a break.

A Poisoned Season (Lady Emily Mystery, #2)

A Poisoned Season
by Tasha Alexander
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9780061174148
Series: Lady Emily Mystery #2
Publication Date: January 1, 2007
Pages: 308
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mythology
Publisher: William Morrow

I thoroughly enjoyed this second outing of Lady Emily; I was sucked back into her society from the first page. No more guilt-ridden, moony angst! But it was not without its issues and shortcomings.

A Poisoned Season picks up where the last book And Only to Deceive leaves off – Emily has returned from Greece in time for the London Season but still chafes against the rules set out for polite society. There’s a pretender to the French throne in town, a cat burglar, and a murder – all contributing to the enlivenment of the season. In an attempt to help out her American friend Margaret, she unwittingly makes herself the focus of scandalous rumours concerning an illicit affair between herself and the Duke of Bainbridge. Colin is trying to stop a coup d’etat. Her best friend Ivy is having marital problems, and let’s not forget the wager between Lady Emily and Colin…

I think the author tried to weave too many threads into the story. Bainbridge is so prominent as to be considered a main character in the first half of the book – then he all but disappears without so much as a line of dialogue between himself and Emily. Perhaps we’ll see him again in a future book, but the reader isn’t given any indication of that. Also, there’s a growing animosity towards Lady Emily on the part of Robert’s boss, culminating with a nasty scene at Ivy’s ball – but it’s never explained. What was up with that?!?

Mostly, though, I just enjoyed the story and the mystery(ies). The murder mystery was exceptionally well done. I was totally bamboozled; talk about Machiavellian planning. The secondary mysteries were entertaining, but not overly impressive; the identity of one of the characters was evident from the first clue.

If I found Colin less than swoon-worthy in the first book, I was a true convert by the end of this one. He’s my idea of a romantic hero: confident enough of his own identity to be completely at ease with a strong, independent female. His gift at the end of the book was inspired for both it’s real value and its metaphorical one. If I didn’t like Lady Emily, he alone might be reason enough for me to keep reading.