Recommended Reads, February 2016

I missed last week's recipe and happiness posts because my daughter and I have been fighting the Lingering Cold of Doom 2016, and I spent from Tuesday night through midday Sunday doing as little as possible. This illness, however, led to me getting more reading done than I expected in February, a total of 15 books.

Here are my favorites from those books, in the order I read them. As far as I know, none were actually February releases--I'm rarely quite that up-to-date in my reading--but if your curiosity is piqued, they're all available as ebooks and/or at your local library.

Accidental Saints by Nadia Bolz-Weber

A memoir of faith by an unconventional Lutheran pastor (her congregation is the House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver) that was the perfect read for me at the beginning of Lent. It follows the rhythm of the liturgical church year--which is a big part of what drew me from my very non-liturgical Baptist roots all the way to the Episcopal Church, that whole sense of following an ancient rhythm and set of traditions to mark the patterns of the year--and also features the life-affirming grace and humor that have been a source of joy to me as a newbie Episcopalian. (Episcopalians and Lutherans have wildly different Protestant origin stories, but at least in America have grown quite a bit alike, so there's a certain similarity in style and approach, and our congregations often work together.)


The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher

I'd never read anything by Butcher before, though I knew him for a popular and prolific author. So I didn't quite know what to expect from this book.

What I found was purely delightful. Steampunk fantasy with airships engaging in duels a la Hornblower or Aubrey/Maturin in the clouds! Swashbuckling! Talking cats! (The talking cats were my favorite part of all.)

This book is first in a new series which I expect to follow all the way through, and I plan to check out Butcher's backlist as well. There are few things more delightful as a reader than discovering a new-to-you author whose "also by..." list takes up an entire page.


In Her Wildest Dreams by Farrah Rochon

A contemporary romance novella that packed a lot of romance and character develop into a story you can read in an afternoon. It features one of my all-time favorite tropes--friends to lovers--in a pair of New Orleans entrepreneurs (he's a computer programmer turned chocolatier, and she's a high-end event planner) who support and advise each other as they struggle to balance their longing for independence and self-sufficiency with their needs for community, to care for and accept care from friends and family.

I love that this is a city story, and one where love goes hand in hand with work, ambition, and finding a sense of vocation and fulfillment in their careers for both the hero and heroine.


Forgotten: The Untold Story of D-Day's Black Heroes, at Home and at War by Linda Hervieux

This account of black American soldiers during WWII, focusing on the experience of a barrage balloon battalion who landed at Omaha Beach on D-Day, was fascinating, and it left me gibbering with rage at the culture I was born into--that of the rural white South--for the way those soldiers, American citizens fighting to defend our country and to liberate Europe from tyranny and genocide, were treated. Yes, much has changed (though much still needs to change). But the fact that German POWs were regularly given privileges, kindness, and leisure opportunities that black AMERICAN SOLDIERS were denied? It's sickening. Not surprising, sadly, but sickening. (Not that I'm saying the POWs should've been treated badly, please understand.) And it also made me realize that we're almost as far removed from WWII now as WWII was removed from the Civil War. It seems weird that we're so many decades past WWII that it's starting to feel both distant from our world and close enough to the Civil War that you can clearly see the through-lines connecting them in American race relations and military history.

Listen to the Moon by Rose Lerner

While In Her Wildest Dreams was a delicious example of one of my favorite tropes, Listen to the Moon took a trope I usually struggle with--a large age gap between the hero and heroine--and made it work for me. (He's 40 and she's 22.) It helped that they met as adults, and she was never in any sense his ward or otherwise a daughter figure to him, so while there was a gap in their maturity and life experience, they still felt like equals in their relationship.

It's also an unusual historical romance in that the hero and heroine are both servants and stay that way throughout the story. In addition to being a sexy love story is something of a meditation on work, community, and finding your true vocation--so in that way it has a lot in common with my other romance recommendation. More romances like these, please!

2015 Reading, Books 37-42

37. An Invitation to Sin by Sarah Morgan

Harlequin Presents aren't my usual thing, but I do love Sarah Morgan's because she's so good at writing heroines who can stand up to the powerful, rich, sexy alpha heroes required by the line. In this one I enjoyed how the heroine's toughness and confidence upended all the hero's stereotypes and expectations about women without ever crossing the line (IMHO) into the dreaded "I love you because you're nothing like other women" trope.

38. What Matters in Jane Austen by John Mullan

A recommended read for anyone with at least moderately high familiarity with the Austen canon. (If you haven't read the books or maybe read Pride & Prejudice once 20 year ago, you'll be lost and bored.) Over 20 chapters, Mullan looks at how Austen handles topics such as marriage proposals, money, and characters' reading habits across her novels, along with aspects of her literary technique in point of view, dialogue, etc.

39. Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder

When the South Dakota Historical Society Press decided to put out an annotated version of the autobiography that became the root of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series, apparently they expected it to be of interest to a few historians and scholars, and then had to rush to print copies for all the people like me who read their Little House books into tatters as children!

And if you were also such a child, you should read this book. It's interesting to see how Wilder streamlined her real life into the fictional account. The real Ingalls family was less iconic--e.g. De Smet in the novels seems a lot more isolated than it really was. (Except during the Long Winter. The trains really couldn't get through the snow for months, the settlement really was that unprepared due to the early onset of that year's snows and the fact it was newly settled and therefore no one had managed a large crop that year or had much livestock, and you get the impression people did come damn close to starving. I even wonder if Laura was so very short as an adult, 4'11", partly because of enduring such an experience during her prime growth spurt period in early adolescence, though she probably would've been petite regardless.) But in some ways the real Ingalls family struggled more, since in the novels Wilder left out the worst of the poverty they occasionally fell into, the death of her baby brother, and sundry other incidents that wouldn't seem right for a kids' book.

40. Rose Sees Red by Cecil Castellucci

A YA novel set in the early 80's at the height of the Cold War (and HOW weird is it to see my own youth become an era that gets the retro treatment) about a teenager depressed over her childhood best friend's betrayal who goes out adventuring one night with the Russian girl next door (the daughter of Soviet diplomats). A quick, engaging read.

41. Promise of the Wolves by Dorothy Hearst

First in a fantasy trilogy about a young wolf 14,000 years ago destined to become a bridge between wolfkind and humankind, and by extension between humanity and the natural world. While I wasn't absolutely blown away by it, I did enjoy it and was sufficiently intrigued to put the second book on hold at my library.

Incidentally, I thought of buying this book as a birthday present for my 11-year-old daughter. It's not YA per se, but it's a coming-of-age story, the reading level is well within her above-grade-level capacity, and she loves animal fantasies.

However, the Kindle edition is $13.99. I'm not normally one to whine about ebook pricing--to me, it's about the content, not the format, and I'm happy to pay the same price I would for a print edition, or very slightly lower because I can't give the ebook away or donate it to the library when I'm done, which lowers the value somewhat. But for a book that's been out since 2008, I don't want to pay more than a normal MMPB price, say $5.99 or $6.99 or so. Maybe I'm somewhat biased by the fact that before I was an ebook reader I was a MMPB reader for almost anything that wasn't a new release by an absolute favorite author--and even then I was willing to wait for the paperback or wait out the hold list for the library hardcover unless the prior book had ended on a cliffhanger. But that still seems high to me.

42. The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers

This was a re-read of a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery I'd only read once, so many years ago that at first I barely remembered any of the plot, though it came back to me as I went along, enough so to give me the pleasant sensation of being ahead of the sleuth for a change. :-) Not my favorite Lord Peter book by a long shot--the story gets bogged down in the minutia of fen drainage and bell-ringing, IMHO--but a lesser Lord Peter book is still better than most of what's out there.

2015 Reading, Books 22-24

22. Texts from Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortberg

A fun and occasionally laugh-out-loud hilarious imagining of assorted literary characters conversing via text. I think my favorites were Hermione frantically trying to keep Ron from disaster via hopeless cluelessness and gullibility WRT such Muggle matters as credit cards and Nigerian prince spam schemes and the idea that Prissy of Gone With the Wind was faking her stupidity all along in the interests of sabotage.

23. Rita book #6

I am not the target market for this book. Which made it a challenge to judge, because my not being its intended audience doesn't necessarily make it a bad book, you know? But I did my best to evaluate how well it succeeded at what it was trying to do, and to imagine how a reader who was looking for something different from a love story than I am might perceive it, so hopefully I was fair.

24. Getting Lucky by Beth Bolden

A fun, sweet read that I especially appreciated for having likable characters not prone to overreacting or misunderstanding each other just to drive the plot along. That said, I didn't like it as much as Bolden's previous book in the same series because it's not so much a baseball romance as a small town romance about a character who happens to be a baseball player, and contemporary American-set small-town romances are not my personal catnip.

Closing the book on 2014 reading and starting my 2015 reading

I spent last week visiting Mr. Fraser's family in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Between travel time and the odd quiet moment, I was able to finish 6 books--3 in 2014 and 3 in the new year:

The last of the 2014 reading:

140) Lighting the Flames by Sarah Wendell


A Hanukkah romance set at a Jewish summer camp trying to make a go of a winter break camp to build enthusiasm between terms. The hero and heroine have known each other since childhood, but almost exclusively as campers and then counselors. They're now in their twenties, just stepping into their careers and feeling out a newfound attraction and what it means in their outside-of-camp worlds. Definitely the first book I've read where the hero is a mortician, and by the end of the book I found his career awesome rather than off-putting.

141) Yours Forever by Farrah Rochon

A fun, quick romance about an aspiring politician who wants to keep family scandals going back generations buried and a history professor who needs his family records to keep her faculty position.

142) Ancestral Journeys by Jean Manco

The simple summary: People have constantly been migrating, as DNA increasingly reveals. A little on the dry side, but worth a read if the topic is of interest to you.

And the first of 2015:

1. Yes Please by Amy Poehler


A generally entertaining and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny memoir (though it gets a bit rambly at times). The chapters on focusing on creativity above career had a lot of resonance for me.

2. The Resistance Man by Martin Walker

The latest in Walker's endearing, food-porny mystery series. I pretty much guessed the murderer--at least, I suspected him before the sleuth did, which left me feeling clever.

3. Gunpowder Alchemy by Jeannie Lin

A really excellent steampunk alternative history set in 1840's China. Plenty of adventure and a nice thread of romance.

It's already feeling a bit late to do a "best reads of 2014" list, but I might do one anyway sometime in the next week for the sake of reviewing the year and in case anyone is looking for some recommendations and, like me, doesn't have any particular compulsion to read new books the instant they appear. (Unless they're sequels to books that ended on cliffhangers, in which case GIVE GIVE GIVE NOW NOW NOW.)

For 2015, my reading goals are the same as always--read a lot, and read a good variety of genres and topics.

2014 Reading, Books 136-138

136) The Devil's Cave by Martin Walker

Another entry in a series I've become fond of because, as with many of my favorite mystery series, the discovery of a corpse serves as an excuse to visit the sleuth and his friends, enemies, and lovers again. Sure, there's a mystery to be solved. But more importantly, Bruno has a new puppy! And is still torn between Isabelle and Pamela, though I'm starting to suspect he might end up with someone else, like maybe Florence. (FWIW, I'm Team Pamela. So I guess I ship Bramela. Or maybe Pamuno.) Oh, and there are many delicious meals. I can hardly wait to get to the Dordogne region next summer myself so I can eat a bit like that myself.

137) Faith Shift by Kathy Escobar

Not quite a memoir, not quite a self-help book, and not quite a book of theology, this book explores the kind of faith crisis many Christians, especially those from an evangelical or fundamentalist background, go through when we/they discover that the world doesn't necessarily match up to their carefully held, carefully taught beliefs. I wish I'd had it when I was first beginning to go through my own faith shift, and even now it felt a bit freeing to be given permission to doubt, question, not got to church EVERY Sunday, etc. That said, for someone trying to avoid Christianese, she sure talks about "seasons" a lot for stages/phases. (It's total Christian-speak: "I'm going through a season of doubt/joy/grief/etc. right now," where "season" has nothing to do with its conventional calendar/climatological meaning.)

138) A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev

This book has been getting a lot of raves in the romance blogosphere of late, and I'd say those raves are deserved, though I'm not sure yet whether it's going to make it onto the Top 10 list for 2014 reads that I'll be making sometime next weekend. But it's a book that manages the neat trick of being laugh-out-loud funny without being at all slight, the characters are human and relatable, and reading it felt a bit like being an invited guest at an Indian wedding.

Happy Labor Day (and Happy Second New Year)!

Happy Labor Day to my American readers, and I hope you're having a relaxing weekend as you prepare to head into the fall season.

To me, September has always felt more like the start of a new year than January, no matter what the calendar, not to mention my own January 1 birthday, tells me. I was a student for seventeen years, after all, for most of my working life my day job has been in academia, and now I have a fifth grade daughter. So September is all about new beginnings.

It just so happens that this year it's fresh start time for me, too. I spent June and July up to my ears in edits for my January release, Freedom to Love. It was far more intense a process than editing usually is for me after the editorial team and I agreed that the book would be better if I took some of the events I'd been planning to use in its sequel and made them part of this book's ending. The manuscript grew a good 20,000 words longer, and by the time I'd turned the almost-final manuscript in about a month ago, I needed a break, so I took most of August off from writing and the business aspects of my writing career.

So today I'm starting a brand new manuscript, in a brand-new-to-me genre, contemporary romance. I've been saying jokingly for years that I'm going to write a series about small-town girls who moved to the big city for work and DON'T go back to their hometowns only to realize they never should've left and their high school sweetheart was the only man for them after all. Since every time I mention the idea, I get a chorus of "Do it!" from friends, I decided to make that my project for the next two months.

That's right, two months. I'm going to try to complete my rough draft by 10/31. I'm trying out Book in a Month, only stretched over two months because I also have to get ready for my November and January releases and avoid over-stressing my still-fragile neck and shoulder. Assuming it goes well, I'll do the same thing in November and December for Freedom to Love's sequel and have two manuscripts to edit and submit come early 2015.

I'll keep you all posted on how it goes. Good luck with your own fall projects!

2014 Reading, Books 61-63

61) The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan

A rambling yet absorbing look at the lives of the women--and some of the men--who helped develop the atomic bomb, focused heavily on Oak Ridge, TN, but with occasional side trips elsewhere. I'd never paid much attention to this aspect of WWII. Most of my interest, such as it is, has focused on the war in Europe and the Holocaust.

Growing up I was taught that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary to end the war because Japan just wasn't going to surrender, that the only other alternative was invading Japan at the loss of maybe 100,000 American lives. Now...well, I don't suppose I should be surprised to learn that this history wasn't as simple as I was taught in school and at my very patriotic mother's knee when nothing else is, either. Those weren't the only two alternatives--to name just one simple possibility, there was at least some talk of having Japanese envoys see a test of a nuclear weapon so they'd know what we could do. I suppose once the science was out there, development of atomic bombs was inevitable, and I'm pragmatist enough to accept that meant America had to have its own arsenal. For all the madness of it, Mutually Assured Destruction did keep the Cold War from going hot. But we could've won WWII without unleashing it.

That's not what this book is really about, though. It's a story about young women coming of age and building a community in a time of crisis, and I admired them and their spirit. Still, I set the book down sputtering about how there was a better way, not to mention my indignation at the account of testing the effects of radioactive materials on a patient who neither knew nor consented to such a test (NATURALLY a black construction worker at the site who'd come into the Oak Ridge hospital with broken legs but otherwise healthy), along with disbelief that the general in charge of the project recommended that the bomb's first target be Kyoto.

What a brilliant and appalling species we are.

62) The Lucky Charm by Beth Bolden

I tend to be wary of both self-published books by authors without a traditional publishing background and sports romances. Too many of the former don't even have a nodding acquaintance with grammar, and too many of the latter don't seem driven by the love of the game itself. I've read baseball books where the author apparently didn't grasp how a pitching rotation works, and I've read reviews of football books where I'm not sure the author had ever watched an entire football game, much less one featuring the extremely famous team she was writing about.

But this book was talked up a few weeks ago on the Dear Bitches Smart Author podcast, and since I trust Jane and Sarah, I decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did. It's a sweet, engaging romantic comedy about a reluctant sideline reporter and a second baseman desperate to get the (obviously fictional) Portland Pioneers to a playoff spot for the first time. As a fan desperate to see the Seattle Mariners make it to the World Series for the first time, I found the premise entirely relatable, and the baseball felt real enough that I was never thrown out of the story as a serious fan.

63) Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

I live in an entire household of introverts. I'm not the most extreme introvert in the world--and am arguably the most extroverted member of my immediate family--but I still come home every night exhausted from all the social engagement in my very pleasant job with fun coworkers that happens to be in a noisy, open-plan office. This book is a lovely affirmation of who introverts are and how challenging it can be to function in extroverted Western culture.

2014 Reading, Books 58-60

58) That Weekend... by Jennifer McKenzie

A nice, light contemporary romance that won my affection by being set in a big city (Vancouver) and having a character briefly return to his hometown (ANOTHER big city, namely Toronto), only to decide to come back to Vancouver as part of the happy ending. Yay big cities! Yay happiness being found outside of one's hometown! True, I could see the characters' Big Misunderstanding coming a mile away and wanted to scream at them to communicate already, but did I mention BIG CITY? In a contemporary romance?

59) The War in the Peninsula: Some Letters of a Lancashire Officer by Lt. Robert Knowles

This brief volume of letters written home by a British officer serving under Wellington in the Iberian Peninsula from 1811 till his death in battle in 1813 at the young age of 24 was originally published in 1913. The letters themselves aren't especially interesting--if you're looking for primary sources on the Peninsular War, you'd be better off with Harry Smith, Private Wheeler, Rifleman Costello, Wellington's own dispatches, and so on. Lt. Knowles wasn't given to vivid descriptions of his surroundings or the battles he fought in, so the letters are basically, "Dear Dad: Took a minor wound, don't worry about me, tell everyone hi and my brothers and sisters I love them, and, oh, by the way, send money because our pay is still behind." Only in early 19th century English, of course.

No, the most interesting thing about this book is the 1913 framing describing the battles and explaining what took place in between each battle. It's so clearly a document of its time, contrasting with both the mentality of the Napoleonic Era and our own with its fulsome praising of British glory and manhood and its assurances of the valor, honor, and cleverness of the French enemy. It's as if, oh, I dunno, the two nations had become allies in the interim, and everyone could see another war coming and was, like, foolishly spoiling for a fight.

60) His Uptown Girl by Liz Talley

Another big city contemporary romance, this one set in New Orleans. The hero is a musician looking to open a jazz nightclub across the street from the heroine's antique store, and she fears a nightclub will be bad for the classy, secure atmosphere their street has been trying to establish for itself...but that's the least of their conflicts. Both still bear scars from Katrina, and the heroine in particular is burdened with a ton of family baggage from her late husband's demise. A good book on hope and new beginnings.

2014 Reading, Books 49-54

49. Secrets of a Bollywood Marriage by Susanna Carr.

A quick, relaxing read that hit the spot during a stressful, busy time. That said, it's definitely a "fight-fight-kiss" romance, and the last fight came so close to the end of the book I wasn't sure I believed they'd learned how to communicate well enough for the kissing to be more frequent than the fighting in their future.

50) Time Warped: Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception by Claudia Hammond

If you like popular science or psychology books, I recommend this exploration of how we experience time. It's fun and readable without feeling dumbed down, and it closes with a practical chapter on how to better manage your experience of time, if not time itself.

51) Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear.

Epic fantasy (which I love) with a twist (something I also generally love). The setting is recognizably similar to our world--something like Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series in that the map will look really familiar, though the fantastical elements are more forward. However, rather than being set in an alternate Europe, this story centers on an alternate central Asia. It ranges across a large chunk of its globe through the eyes of multiple characters, but its focus is a young man named Temur, grandson of a Genghis Khan-like figure, though he's surrounded by a cast of strong women. I enjoyed it very much and plan to read the sequels.

52) Only Human by Gareth Roberts.

A Doctor Who novel, and one that felt like reading an average episode of the show...in a good way. Another fun, relaxing read as I fight my way through my current writing deadline.

53) Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: Treaties, Trenches, Mud, and Blood by Nathan Hale.

The fourth in this series of graphic novels about American history manages, at least in my opinion, to make WWI palatable and understandable for its middle grade audience without dumbing down the material or treating the war lightly. FWIW, my 10-year-old pronounced it good, though not as funny as the previous three. If you've got a child in the right age group, get them these books. Schools don't teach enough history these days, in my not at all humble opinion, and this series strikes the perfect balance of informative and fun.

54) The Marathon Conspiracy by Gary Corby.

This must be my week for just-released Books 4. I enjoyed this latest entry in Corby's series about Nicolaos, a fictional elder brother of Socrates solving crime in Periclean Athens. Especially recommended for fans of Lindsey Davis's Falco series, since it has a similar combination of humor and modern tone with rich historical detail.

2014 Reading, Books 1-3

Time to start a brand new year's reading log! My goal this year is to read 120 books, so I'm shooting for 10/month. And since I had Thursday and Friday off as well as New Year's Day, I'm off to a good start for January. 

My only other goal is to have as much fun with reading as possible this year. Unless it's part of my judging assignment for the Ritas or something I need to research for one of my manuscripts, everything I read will be chosen because it's entertaining and/or fascinating.

This is a reading log rather than my book reviews. I personally don't feel comfortable wearing a reviewer's hat as well as an author's--if you give a scathing review to a best-seller, you come across as jealous, while if you're hard on a newbie, it feels like punching down. So on this blog I'm just listing what I finish, with a few short notes on what I got out of the reading experience. Since I don't finish books unless I enjoy them, you can assume that if I was reviewing, any book listed would at least get a 3.5 stars/B- grade.

1) The Sharing Spoon, by Kathleen Eagle.

I'm not a big fan of small town/rural or Western romance, but Kathleen Eagle is one of my exceptions. Her husband is Lakota, she lives in Minnesota, and for the most part she writes the world she lives in--which means her Native American characters feel like real human beings from a real culture rather than Mystical Fonts of New Age Wisdom. This book is a collection of three holiday novellas (one Thanksgiving and two Christmas), and all of them worked well for me, though the historical "The Wolf and the Lamb" was my favorite. All in all, a good read to say farewell to the holiday season and usher in the new year.

2) Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire.

Since my introduction to McGuire was the far lighter-toned Discount Armageddon, I was surprised and initially taken aback by how much darker and grimmer this urban fantasy world is. Rosemary and Rue introduces half-human, half-fae San Francisco detective Toby Daye, who lost fourteen years of her life by being transformed into a fish while investigating a case for her faerie liege lord. Back in her own form, she doesn't want anything more to do with her old career or her fae connections. But of course she's not really going to be able to escape...

I don't think I'll ever love urban fantasy as much as I do epic and historical fantasy, but this was an intriguing page-turner, and I expect I'll keep reading the series from here.

3) Hyperbole and a Half, by Allie Brosh.

I've been a fan of Allie Brosh ever since my first encounter with Clean All the Things! So naturally her book was at the top of my Christmas wish list. It's a series of illustrated essays, a mix of blog posts and new material that's both laugh-out-loud funny and thoughtfully self-aware. The essays on depression are especially illuminating. I'm not very prone to depression myself--my personal demons tend to take the form of anxiety and panic instead--so her description helps me see and connect to what my friends and relatives who do live with depression are going through.

2013 Reading, Books 103-108

I spent much of November in something of a reading drought, but managed to break it over Thanksgiving week. We visited my in-laws in Tulsa, so I had the whole week off work with two long flights on either end--perfect reading time!

103) Women in English Society 1500-1800, Mary Prior (ed.).

My next randomly chosen research selection, this one had less to do with the world I write about than I expected because it would've been bettered titled Women in English Society 1500-1700. Only one of the chapters had much to say about the 18th century. (My books are set in the opening decades of the 19th century, but the Regency has more in common with the Georgian 18th century than the Victorian heart of the 19th.) That said, it was informative and interesting in a dry, academic sort of way. I was particularly intrigued by the chapter on Tudor bishops' wives, because I so take for granted the respected role of a Protestant pastor's wife that I'd never properly considered how unprecedented and even scandalous married clergy would've seemed to the people of England just after the break with Rome.

104) The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, by Tom Reiss.

The fascinating biography of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas (father of the famous author), son of a French marquis and a Haitian slave, brought to France as a teenager by his father a few years prior to the French Revolution. He enlisted in the cavalry as a common soldier, but after the Revolution he rose to the rank of General D'Armee. Toussaint Louverture held the same rank, but the next black officer to hold an equivalent rank in a western army? Colin Powell.

He died relatively young, in 1806. Still, I'm surprised that with my years of reading about his era I'd never heard of him before. Partly that's because my focus is more on later parts of the Napoleonic Wars, but I've read about the invasion of Egypt and the Italian campaigns he was involved in without encountering him, either. Turns out Dumas, who held strong republican beliefs, didn't like Napoleon, who returned the contempt with interest...and when it was in Napoleon's interest to curry favor with slaveholders and reinstate racist laws, there wasn't a place for a commander like Alex Dumas. Hence his small place in the history books...

105) 250 Things You Should Know About Writing, by Chuck Wendig.

I enjoy Wendig's blog and Twitter commentary on writing and writers, and this short book was a good set of quick reminders about various aspects of the fiction-writing process. I expect to refer to the character and plotting sections in the future.

106) Eat, Play, Lust, by Tawna Fenske.

Another very short read (do you sense a theme here?), a fun quick romance where a yoga instructor heroine with food issues begins a promising relationship with a chef who helps her enjoy the pleasures of food along with other pleasures of the flesh.

107) This Wicked Gift, by Courtney Milan.

For my last read in my romance TBR challenge for 2013--theme, holiday reads--I read Courtney Milan's first published work. More detailed post to come later in the month.

108) Game Change, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.

Gossipy account of the 2008 election. In political terms that now feels like ancient history, but reading it brought back some of the intensity of living through it. Confirmed and intensified my already emphatic opinion that the Democrats dodged a major bullet by not nominating John Edwards. And I like Hillary and am ready to support her if she runs in 2016, but she'd sure better pick a better team to run her campaign.

TBR Challenge Fail!

My attempt to meet this month's theme of an inescapably hyped book met with failure as I discovered, yet again, that even well-written and well-regarded small-town contemporaries rarely work for me. (I won't name the hyped book in question because I'm absolutely convinced it's a good book that just slammed into a severe case of book-reader mismatch with me. I think I've finally learned to stop even attempting this subgenre.) I then tried a few other books from the TBR pile that didn't meet the theme and finally settled on one that I'm enjoying, More Than a Governess by Sarah Mallory, but due to a packed schedule I haven't had time to finish it yet.

I did, however, come up with an idea for a contemporary romance! Girl grows up in small town, then moves to a big city for college--probably Philadelphia or Seattle, in the interests of Writing What I Know--and sticks around after graduation. Her career is off to a good start, in a field that satisfies her wallet, mind, and soul. She doesn't give much thought to her high school sweetheart until he contacts her on Facebook--he's going to be in Philly/Seattle soon. In the serious version of the story, his mom is sick and needs treatment at one of the world-class medical centers these major cities have to offer. In the lighter version, he's there for a conference or something. Either way, he wants to see her. She's curious enough to agree to meet, and turns out the chemistry is still there. She introduces him to the wonders the big city has to offer--food! culture! diversity! big time sports! freedom from busybodies! plenty of community if you know how to find it! He's tempted to ask her to come back to the small town with him, but he ultimately realizes she's made the right choice for her, and that he can and will find a way to make his career work in the city so they can be together. With, you know, more plot and conflict, but you get the picture.

I know, it'd probably never sell, and my writer's heart is with historical and historical fantasy anyway. But if anyone knows of a book that follows this pattern, please please tell me what it is so I can read it right away.

2013 reading, books 79-81

79) Donner Dinner Party, by Nathan Hale.

Miss Fraser and I are having a contest this summer to see who can read the most books from June 1 - Labor Day weekend. The winner gets an Amazon gift card. (Of course I'm not actually trying to beat my 9-year-old. I am trying to make sure she reads instead of spending the entire summer watching TV and playing video games by making the contest as close as possible.) Anyway, my husband, in his role as arbiter of the contest, has decreed that she gets to count this book toward her summer reading tally, but I don't, since it's a middle grade graphic novel. I read it as soon as Miss Fraser finished it anyway because these irreverent takes on famous incidents in American history are just so fun. Of course, any book about the Donner Party is going to be awfully grim in spots. Hale's snarky take actually pulled far fewer punches than the earnest novelization of the same events I read back when I was 9 or 10.

If you've got a middle grade child, I can't recommend the Hazardous Tales series highly enough. My daughter, though smart and geeky, isn't particularly interested in history, but she eats them up. I just wish there was a similar series on European history so I could get her interested in the stuff I write!

(The author really is named Nathan Hale, and the historical Nathan Hale narrates the series--he sees into his future through a Scheherezade plot device wherein as he's about to be hanged he's "taken up into history" and is therefore able to tell stories from America's future to delay his execution. You can read all about it at the series blog, and have I mentioned how awesome these are? Don't have your own middle-grade child? Get the series for your friends' kids, for your nieces and nephews, or to donate to your local library. Or just read them yourself.)

80) Borodino 1812, by Philip Haythornthwaite.

A detailed account of the Battle of Borodino framed by a brief summary of Napoleon's Russian campaign as a whole. I learned little I didn't already know, since I've been reading detailed accounts of the campaign, but I expect I'll refer to this book a lot once I settle into writing my manuscript that's set in Moscow and on the retreat for the sake of the maps, timelines, illustrations, and summary bios of important people on both sides.

81) From Father to Son, by Janice Kay Johnson.

A 2013 Rita finalist in Long Contemporary Series. See more detailed comments in yesterday's post.

2013 Reading, Books 64-72

Catching up on everything I read while traveling...

64) Decisive, by Chip Heath & Dan Heath.

An extremely useful look at how to short-circuit some of the issues that commonly lead to bad decision-making. It gave me some good ideas for how to evaluate my writing career and whether my current path will take me where I want to go and how to balance competing priorities in my life as a whole. This was a library copy, but I'll definitely be buying my own soon.

65) Sprig Muslin, by Georgette Heyer.

For the 2013 TBR Challenge. Detailed comments here.

66) My Life Next Door, by Huntley Fitzpatrick.

A sweet YA romance about the daughter of a perfectionist single mother (who also happens to be a state senator) who falls for the boy next door--from the big, crazy, chaotic family with 8 kids her mother completely disapproves of. A fun story, though I found the heroine's mother and her campaign manager just a bit over-the-top compared to the other characters.

67) An Heiress at Heart, by Jennifer Delamere.

For my Rita finalists challenge. Detailed comments here.

68) Always and Forever, by Farrah Rochon.

An enjoyable contemporary romance set in a small Louisiana town that managed to get past my "no small American towns" filter with its engaging hero and heroine and by not forcing the hero to give up his dream of opening a business in New Orleans to show that Real, Authentic American Life belongs in a small town.

69) Captain Ingram's Inheritance, by Carola Dunn.

Old-school Regency romance that focuses as much on the hero and heroine's community and families as their relationship. I liked it a lot, but if you haven't read Lord Roworth's Reward you'll be pretty lost.

70) What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank, by Krista D. Ball.

A guide to help writers of historical fiction and historically based fantasy write more realistically about what their characters would've eaten and how they would've obtained and prepared it.

71) Swept Off Her Stilettos, by Fiona Harper.

A perfectly delightful confection of a friends-to-lovers story. I couldn't imagine a better book to while away several hours of a long, turbulent plane ride.

72) Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Search, Part 2, by Gene Luen Yang, Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko, Dave Marshall.

The latest entry in the graphic novels filling in some of the gaps between Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. It didn't give me as many answers as I'd hoped for about Zuko's mother, but it's visually beautiful and kept me interested enough to immediately go preorder the final book in the trilogy.

2013 reading, books 46-48

46) Rick Steves' France 2013

More early scouting for my 2015 European trip, which continues to fill me with wistfulness that my 4-6 week dream trip of a lifetime (at least half of which will be spent in France) is going to fly by in an instant, and at best I'll see a tiny fraction of what I'd like. At this point the France plan, assuming I'll be coming in from Spain and working my way up to Belgium in time for the Waterloo anniversary, is to settle in to the Dordogne for at least 4 days, where I will eat amazing food and tour every prehistoric cave site open to visitors, head to Paris for another several days of museum and sightseeing, and then see either Normandy and the D-Day beaches or WWI battlefields around Verdun, because I probably won't have time for both. Maybe if money and work leave allow the 6-week trip, I'll be able to add Provence...or just spend more time in Paris!

47) The Way Back Home, by Barbara Freethy.

Chosen for my 2013 Rita-finalist reading challenge. Detailed commentary here.


48) Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, by Timothy Snyder.

A dense, dark recounting of the mass murder of fourteen million people in twelve years (between 1932 and 1945) by Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany in what the author describes as "the bloodlands"--i.e. those parts of Eastern Europe that fell under both Hitler's and Stalin's sway over the course of the era, basically Poland, the Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and western Russia. Where most histories treat the various waves of murder as separate events, Snyder shows them as a kind of continuous flow from the collectivism famine in the Ukraine in the early 30's on through to the Holocaust. It's hard to take in, too horrific to make sense of, but I'm glad I read it nonetheless. And I like Snyder's closing point that it's not so much fourteen million victims dead as fourteen million times one lives ended--that each one of those people was an individual with a unique life and aspirations cut short, and the best way to honor them is to remember that, to not let them become a mass of dead as Stalin and Hitler wanted them to be.

Susanna reads the Ritas: Contemporary Single Title

In the challenge I set myself to read at least one finalist from each category of the 2013 Ritas, The Way Back Home, by Barbara Freethy, was my Contemporary Single Title Romance choice. And while it was a nice story, sweetly romantic and well-paced, it didn't succeed in overcoming my aversion to small-town contemporary romances. It's funny, I'm fine with small town or rural settings in other countries or in historicals, but an American small-town contemporary romance is almost guaranteed to have me snarling at some point in the story.

I fully admit it's not the books, it's me. I grew up in a small town. I left when I was 18. I live in Seattle. Not in the metropolitan area, not in the suburbs, within the city limits. I love my city and my life, and I loved spending my college years and early 20's in the very different but equally awesome city of Philadelphia. Don't get me wrong, I love my hometown too. I just can't imagine living there again. And I think because the urban vs. rural divide has become so politically and culturally fraught in the past decade or two, it's hard for me to relate to a story that's not just about a small town, but how awesome it is to live in one compared to a city. I literally had to put this book down mid-scene and walk away from it for hours after a character talked about how much better he felt about having his son in a small town school than their old home in San Francisco, because city schools are just so much rougher. The Seattle public school system is far from perfect, but Miss Fraser is having a MUCH better experience than I did in my small-town school growing up. As for behavioral issues...well, let's just say kids are just as likely to get into fights, get stupid drunk at parties, get pregnant, etc. in a small town as in a city. I'd be just as terrified thinking how I'm only four years away from having a teenager no matter where I lived. Nothing else in the book got me huffily indignant, but living in a small town just isn't my fantasy.

So...yeah. Small town contemporary American romances and I remain non-mixy things. I think this would be a lovely book for people not carrying that particular chip on their shoulder, though. (With the caveat that I winced a bit every time the hero was referred to as an ex-Marine, because I've always been told that former Marine is the preferred term for an honorably discharged member of that branch of the service. Also, I don't know what the publisher was thinking with that cover image. The story is set on a river in Northern California, and the heroine's family runs a white-water rafting business. Would it really have been that hard to find an image with some, you know, rugged hills, a fast-moving river, and some Western-looking trees? I may not want to LIVE in rural Northern California, but it's an incredibly beautiful place. I know, accuracy in romance cover images is a lost cause, but seems like it'd be easier with contemporaries.)

2013 TBR Challenge - Hot Under Pressure

March's theme for the 2013 TBR Challenge was Series Catch-Up, an appealing one for me because I do tend to hoard books in romance series I enjoy against reading droughts, long flights, etc.--any situation where I know I'll want a reliably good book. So I wasn't lacking for choices for this one.

(In other genres, I'm a lot more likely to inhale a new book in a series within days or even hours of its release because the previous volume probably ended on a cliffhanger, or at least with tons of unanswered questions that have been bugging me for months or YEARS. Since romances have to at least feature a happy ending for that book's central characters, there's less of that "FINALLY a new book, must read NOW!" stress.)

Anyway, this month my selection was...

23) Hot Under Pressure, by Louisa Edwards.

This book is the third in a trilogy about restaurant teams competing in a Rising Star Chef competition.

I don't read a lot of contemporary romance, in large part because so much of the subgenre runs to hymns to the glories of small town life. I grew up in a small town. I went to college in Philadelphia and have settled down to live my adult life in Seattle. Never, in all the times I've gone back to my hometown, have I felt the slightest hunger to hook up with an old flame or to turn my back on my empty urban existence for the authentic community of people I'm probably some kind of distant cousin to, what with Great-Great-Granddaddy Stone's 17 children who married into practically every family in the southeast corner of our county. I can relate to Barrayar and Narnia and Terre d'Ange and any number of invented fantastical worlds. To small town romances, not so much.

Which is a big reason why one of my few contemporary romance autobuy authors is Louisa Edwards. Her stories of love among young, elite chefs are hymns to the glories of city life, of how found family can be even more important than the one you were born into. And, they're about food and cooking, which is close behind books and history on my personal obsessions list. Hot Under Pressure is a worthy final installment to the Rising Star Chef series. It's a second chance story about a couple who married very young, only to be driven apart by tragedy...until a decade or so later they find themselves competing against each other in the finals, representing their New York and San Francisco restaurants.

2013 Reading, Books 22-24

Incidentally, my random cooking posts are on a brief hiatus while I deal with writing commitments and deadlines. I expect to return to them sometime in April.

Three very distinct types of book this time out, all of which I enjoyed very much:


22) Whose Names Are Unknown, by Sanora Babb.

I heard about this book while watching Ken Burns' Dust Bowl documentary. It was originally written and accepted for publication in the 1930's, then rejected after The Grapes of Wrath came out because the acquiring editor figured there wasn't room for TWO Dust Bowl/Okie migrant stories. (Which is so laughably different from today's market, where every hit spawns a dozen imitators.)

I'm glad I read this book. It's more literary than my usual taste, but it has a kind of subtle, deceptively simple beauty, and it sort of rounded out my understanding of the Dust Bowl era, I think, in the way that good fiction can bring the past to life better than documentary alone.

23) Hot Under Pressure, by Louisa Edwards. My March entry for Wendy the Superlibrarian's TBR challenge, to be posted on in more detail on the 20th.


24) The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, by Oliver Burkeman.

I am by nature, culture, and upbringing a goal-oriented person who hungers for certainty in life. So I struggle when my cherished certainties crumble in the face of reality, or when I fail to meet my goals--or even when I meet them, but the happiness I expected doesn't come as a sort of trophy. Lately I've been realizing that I get so busy striving that I forget to revel in the now. I tend to almost "marry" my goals, becoming so attached to even short-term, trivial plans that having them thrown awry, even for GOOD reasons (e.g. a sudden offer of babysitting from a friend enabling Mr Fraser and I to have a date night when I'd already planned out a quiet evening writing at home) is severely discombobulating.

I've been trying to learn to strike a balance between planning, making schedules, and setting goals--because if I didn't, I'd never finish books or learn new cooking techniques or meet deadlines--and being able to let go of those plans when circumstances warrant. I'm also trying to savor the moment more--the joy of a new story idea without dwelling on whether a publisher will buy it or how well it fits my career plan, the joy of creation in the kitchen without feeling like *I* am a failure if the the dish doesn't turn out well, etc. So this book hit home, with its examination of how self-help and positive thinking techniques often fail, but Stoicism, meditation, and generally accepting mortality, failure, and uncertainty paradoxically lead to a happier and even a more productive life.

There's even a chapter about that goal marriage habit I have, though the terminology is different. One of the examples cited was the catastrophic 1996 Everest expedition famously chronicled in Into Thin Air. A persuasive theory for why so many climbers died was that they were unable to turn back from the summit when common sense and their predetermined plans dictated doing so was that their goal of summiting had become too critical a part of their identity. I think that example is going to stick in my mind next time I have trouble letting go of a goal in the face of changing circumstances. If nothing else, it gives, "Is this hill worth dying on?" a whole new meaning.

2013 TBR Challenge - Monsoon Wedding Fever

This year I decided to take on a TBR challenge in an effort to actually READ some of the books I pick up for my Kindle thinking they sound interesting and then never get to because they keep getting buried beneath the next pile of purchases. Since the whole point is to whittle down my to-be-read pile, I'm limiting myself to books I owned as of 12/31/12.

The theme for January is We Love Short Shorts - short stories, novellas, and category romance. I selected a 2012 category romance from the Harlequin Romance line, Monsoon Wedding Fever, by Shoma Narayanan.

I bought this book because I was happy to see Harlequin bring out a book about Indian characters by an Indian author. What interested me most as I read was seeing how the conventions of a category contemporary romance played out within a different cultural milieu, one that's mostly unfamiliar to me. For example, the heroine is much more concerned about her reputation and keeping up appearances than a contemporary American or British heroine would be--though as a writer and reader primarily of historicals, I didn't have any trouble relating to her concerns. 

This is a reunion story. The hero and heroine, Dhruv and Riya, first met in college, when she was 17 and he was 20, but he broke up with her abruptly and rather coldly--which I found forgivable given his youth and the fact his own parents' marriage was in crisis. They meet again some eleven years later, when it turns out he's a cousin to her roommate who's about to get married. In the run-up to that wedding, they can't avoid each other, and they reconnect.

But their romance doesn't run smoothly. Dhruv is the richer of the pair, and Riya is super-sensitive about her independence and proving she can provide for herself. Also, she learns from family gossip that he's been seeking an arranged marriage, meeting women more suitable in the eyes of his family than she could ever be, so she's understandably concerned he sees her as nothing but a temporary fling. I got a little impatient waiting for them to actually communicate, but overall this was a satisfying romance and an interesting glimpse at another part of the world.

2013 reading, books 1-3

I decided this year to post to my reading journal every time I've read three books, so here goes:


1) The Signal and the Noise, by Nate Silver.

I've been a fan of Nate Silver's since the early days of fivethirtyeight.com back in 2008, and I value his commitment to looking at what the data says rather than what he wants to spin it into saying. It's so refreshing in the world of political journalism, and you can't argue with his results.

That said, I expected to find this book mathy and daunting. But it wasn't at all. OK, my eyes may have glazed over a little during the stock market and poker sections, but Silver has a knack for including clarifying charts and analogies, and I found it fascinating to see how predictions succeed and fail across a variety of fields and how we can find commonalities between them.

2) Monsoon Wedding Fever, by Shoma Narayanan.

I chose this for my first book in Wendy the Superlibrarian's 2013 romance reading challenge, and I will post about it in more detail on the 16th.

3) The Fiddler on Pantico Run, by Joe Mozingo.

A memoir/family history about the LA Times journalist author's discovery that his supposedly Italian last name was actually African and had somehow survived all the way from the 17th century even after most of the original American Mozingo's descendants had passed into the white community. A rambling but intriguing journey through the author's family tree, with visits to his distant cousins and excursions to Jamestown, Cameroon, and Angola.