The Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie

1 Comment

Posted on November 13, 2015

25111020

The Sisters of Versailles

by Sally Christie

published by Atria Books

September, 2015

I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Thoughts

I like a fun historical fiction and that is exactly what this was. This book, which was a very quick read, reminded me a little of Phillipa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl. The Sisters of Versailles takes place in the French Court of Louis XV in the early 18th Century. It is based on the real life relationship between Louis and the Nesle sisters- Louise, Pauline, Diane, Marie-ann, and Hortense. Four of the five sisters became Louis’ mistress.

This story, which is the first in what is to be a trilogy, is told in the voices of the five Nesle sisters. The first sister to come to court at Versailles is Louise. She is married to a cousin, very unhappily. At Versailles, she is a lady for the queen. Through the machinations of those closest to the King, Louise is chosen to become Louis’ mistress. A few years later, she invites her sister Pauline to visit her, unwisely it turns out, since Pauline quick replaces her site in Louis’ heart and bed. Eventually, all the sisters except Hortense- who is actually happily married- become a lover to the king.

This was a fun book that I was able to read rather quickly. I of course had to look up the actual history of the relationship between Louis and the sisters, and BAM- all true. Four out of five of them were his “official” mistress. I couldn’t believe it. What was more incredible was the fact that Pauline made the King wait until she was married before she would sleep with him. It was more acceptable if she was married and a part of the court. It turns out the French people were not really thrilled by the relationships, many calling it incest. This was a fun book and I am looking forward to reading the next two installments.

Summary

Goodness, but sisters are a thing to fear.

Set against the lavish backdrop of the French Court in the early years of the 18th century, The Sisters of Versailles is the extraordinary tale of the five Nesle sisters: Louise, Pauline, Diane, Hortense, and Marie-Anne, four of whom became mistresses to King Louis XV. Their scandalous story is stranger than fiction but true in every shocking, amusing, and heartbreaking detail.

Court intriguers are beginning to sense that young King Louis XV, after seven years of marriage, is tiring of his Polish wife. The race is on to find a mistress for the royal bed as various factions put their best foot – and women – forward. The King’s scheming ministers push Louise, the eldest of the aristocratic Nesle sisters, into the arms of the King. Over the following decade, the four sisters:sweet, naive Louise; ambitious Pauline; complacent Diane, and cunning Marie Anne, will conspire, betray, suffer, and triumph in a desperate fight for both love and power.

In the tradition of The Other Boleyn Girl, The Sisters of Versailles is a clever, intelligent, and absorbing novel that historical fiction fans will devour. Based on meticulous research on a group of women never before written about in English, Sally Christie’s stunning debut is a complex exploration of power and sisterhood; of the admiration, competition, and even hatred that can coexist within a family when the stakes are high enough.

The Courtesan by Alexandra Curry

Circling the Sun by Paula McLain

2 Comments

Posted on July 24, 2015

Circling the Sun

by Paula McLain

published by Ballantine Books

July 28, 2015

I received this book as an advance review copy from the publisher through net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

My Review

I loved McLains’ The Paris Wife so much and I was so happy to receive Circling The Sun from the publishers. I was not disappointed! First- this makes me want to read, and then watch Out of Africa, which I never have. Then I want to read Markham’s own memoir West with the Night. The author has presented an amazing description of aAfrica in the early 20th century, as well as one of the Europeans who either treated it as a part of heaven, or a playground for the wealthy and bored.

Beryl Markham lived an amazing life. She grew up on a farm in Kenya, raised only by her somewhat neglectful father after her mother leaves them to return to England. She was permitted to run wild, learning how to hunt and shoot with the native boys. When her father tries to send her to school in her teens, she repeatedly runs away until she is kicked out. She lived her life in such an unconventional way, at at time when there weren’t many choices for women living on their own. She did marry two times- both were very unhappy and ended quickly. Markham had many affairs, but was only made truly happy but three things- horses, Denys Finch- Hatton, and flying.

This might be one of my favorite books of the year so far. The writing was wonderful and the author obviously did a meticulous job with her research. My favorite part of the book is the descriptions of Africa, and the obvious love Markham had for it. I would definitely recommend this book. A big thank you to Ballantine Books and Net Galley for sharing it with me!

Summary

Paula McLain, author of the phenomenal bestseller The Paris Wife, now returns with her keenly anticipated new novel, transporting readers to colonial Kenya in the 1920s. Circling the Sun brings to life a fearless and captivating woman—Beryl Markham, a record-setting aviator caught up in a passionate love triangle with safari hunter Denys Finch Hatton and Karen Blixen, who as Isak Dinesen wrote the classic memoir Out of Africa.

Brought to Kenya from England as a child and then abandoned by her mother, Beryl is raised by both her father and the native Kipsigis tribe who share his estate. Her unconventional upbringing transforms Beryl into a bold young woman with a fierce love of all things wild and an inherent understanding of nature’s delicate balance. But even the wild child must grow up, and when everything Beryl knows and trusts dissolves, she is catapulted into a string of disastrous relationships.

Beryl forges her own path as a horse trainer, and her uncommon style attracts the eye of the Happy Valley set, a decadent, bohemian community of European expats who also live and love by their own set of rules. But it’s the ruggedly charismatic Denys Finch Hatton who ultimately helps Beryl navigate the uncharted territory of her own heart. The intensity of their love reveals Beryl’s truest self and her fate: to fly.

Set against the majestic landscape of early-twentieth-century Africa, McLain’s powerful tale reveals the extraordinary adventures of a woman before her time, the exhilaration of freedom and its cost, and the tenacity of the human spirit.

To learn more about Beryl Markham, check out some of these site-

http://scandalouswoman.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-many-lives-of-beryl-markham.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryl_Markham

http://womanpilot.com/?p=67

The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg

1 Comment

Posted on March 18, 2015

The Dream Lover

by Elizabeth Berg

published by

2015

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

My Review

I honestly knew next to nothing about French novelist George Sand, though I had heard of her. Therefore, I was looking forward to reading Dream Lover, especially since I have enjoyed Berg’s previous works very much. This novel is a departure for Berg, and I am not sure it was totally successful. The beginning is interesting, where we learned about Sand’s parents, how they met and fell in love, and the early years of their family. As we move on to where Sand leaves her husband and children to live with her lover in Paris and write, I lost interest. The story seemed forced and a little boring, which surprised me. George Sand was supposedly a very scandalous person, but here she was really just selfish and annoying. I kept waiting for it to improve and was sorry it did not. This was unusual for me, because I truly enjoy Berg as an author.

Summary

George Sand was a 19th century French novelist known not only for her novels but even more for her scandalous behavior. After leaving her estranged husband, Sand moved to Paris where she wrote, wore men’s clothing, smoked cigars, and had love affairs with famous men and an actress named Marie. In an era of incredible artistic talent, Sand was the most famous female writer of her time. Her lovers and friends included Frederic Chopin, Gustave Flaubert, Franz Liszt, Eugene Delacroix, Victor Hugo, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and more. In a major departure, Elizabeth Berg has created a gorgeous novel about the life of George Sand, written in luminous prose, with exquisite insight into the heart and mind of a woman who was considered the most passionate and gifted genius of her time.

At the Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen

2 Comments

Posted on March 9, 2015

At the Water’s Edge

by Sara Gruen

published by Spiegel & Grau

March 31, 2015

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

My Review

I read Water For Elephants and Ape House by this author so I was really looking forward to her new work. The beginning of the book dragged a little for me, mostly due to the characters being quite obnoxious. Maddie, her husband Ellis, and their friend Hank are wetly ne’r do wells living in Philadelphia during WWII. Ellis and Frank and medically unfit to serve, and this is a source great embarrassment to Ellis’ family. On New Year;s Eve, the three get very drunk and declare to a large party that they are going to go to Scotland to find proof of the Loch Ness Monster, a particular source of embarrassment to Ellis’ father, who was caught trying to falsify pictures of the monster years earlier. They make the perilous crossing and take up residence in a small inn. It is here that Maddie begins to change, and starts to really question the lifestyle she has been leading. At this point, Gruen really pulls the reader in and makes them care what happens to these characters. I would have liked to spend more time on the characters of Anna, Angus, and Meg. I loved that Gruen took some time to give a real sense of a small Scottish town and its inhabitants. If you like historical fiction, you will enjoy this.

Summary

After embarrassing themselves at the social event of the year in high society Philadelphia on New Year’s Eve of 1942, Maddie and Ellis Hyde are cut off financially by Ellis’s father, a former army Colonel who is already embarrassed by his son’s inability to serve in WWII due to his being colorblind. To Maddie’s horror, Ellis decides that the only way to regain his father’s favor is to succeed in a venture his father attempted and very publicly failed at: he will hunt the famous Loch Ness monster and when he finds it he will restore his father’s name and return to his father’s good graces (and pocketbook). Joined by their friend Hank, a wealthy socialite, the three make their way to Scotland in the midst of war. Each day the two men go off to hunt the monster, while another monster, Hitler, is devastating Europe. And Maddie, now alone in a foreign country, must begin to figure out who she is and what she wants. The novel tells of Maddie’s social awakening: to the harsh realities of life, to the beauties of nature, to a connection with forces larger than herself, to female friendship, and finally, to love.

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant

6 Comments

Posted on December 19, 2014

The Boston Girl

by Anita Diamant

published by Scribner

2014

I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher through Net Galley in return for an honest review

My Review

I read The Red Tent by this author years ago and fell in love with it. It is still one of my favorite books. I have not read anything else by her in the years between, so when I had the opportunity to read her latest novel, I jumped at it. I was not disappointed! Though very different, The Boston Girl is just as good, if not better, than The Red Tent. This is the story of Addie Baum, told by Addie herself as an 85 year old woman telling her life story to her 22 year old granddaughter. It is an amazing story about life growing up Jewish in the North End of Boston in the early 20th century. Beginning in 1915, Addie tell her all about her life- how her family and her friends shaped her life. I didn’t want it to end. Looking back, I can’t remember one part of the book that I didn’t think was necessary to the story. I actually wanted more- more detail, more characters, and I was disappointed when it ended. I truly hope the author writes more- and quickly.

Summary

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Red Tent and Day After Night, comes an unforgettable coming-of-age novel about family ties and values, friendship and feminism told through the eyes of young Jewish woman growing up in Boston in the early twentieth century.

Addie Baum is The Boston Girl, born in 1900 to immigrant parents who were unprepared for and suspicious of America and its effect on their three daughters. Growing up in the North End, then a teeming multicultural neighborhood, Addie’s intelligence and curiosity take her to a world her parents can’t imagine – a world of short skirts, movies, celebrity culture and new opportunities for women. Addie wants to finish high school and dreams of going to college. She wants a career and to find true love.

Eighty-five-year-old Addie tells the story of her life to her twenty-two-year-old granddaughter, who has asked her “How did you get to be the woman you are today.” She begins in 1915, the year she found her voice and made friends who would help shape the course of her life. From the one-room tenement apartment she shared with her parents and two sisters, to the library group for girls she joins at a neighborhood settlement house, to her first, disastrous love affair, Addie recalls her adventures with compassion for the naïve girl she was and a wicked sense of humor.

Written with the same attention to historical detail and emotional resonance that made Anita Diamant’s previous novels bestsellers, The Boston Girl is a moving portrait of one woman’s complicated life in twentieth century America, and a fascinating look at a generation of women finding their places in a changing world.

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

5 Comments

Posted on November 21, 2014

Burial Rites

by Hannah Kent

published by

2013

I borrowed an audiobook copy of this novel from my library.

My Review

When this book was published last year, it received some really wonderful reviews from all over. I remember other bloggers LOVED this book. I read the synopsis and-meh- couldn’t really push myself to pick this up. It sounded too dry and bleak. Fast forward a year, and give me two teens who go to a school that is a 40 minute drive from home. I have never listed to an audiobook before, but figured I should give it a try since I was spending so much time in the car now. I grabbed Burial Rites on cd, figuring I would give it a shot.

First day, I was going a little crazy. I thought-” Damn, I read so much faster than this lady is reading!!” Then, I settled down, and I found I couldn’t stop listening. I actually sat in my driveway until the track was over. The story was amazing. I found myself not only wrapped up in the story or Agnes, and the family housing her, but also about Iceland in the 1800’s. I had to look up as much as I could about everything, because it was so fascinating. To add to this, the audiobook was narrated byMorven Christie. Her voice can transport you to the Iceland of the story better than reading the words yourself. I loved her cadence and think I enjoyed the story so much better for having listed to her narration.

If you have not read this book, I would definitely recommend it to you. More importantly, I would recommend the audiobook. I think I might be a convert.

Summary

Set against Iceland’s stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.

Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tóti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes’s death looms, the farmer’s wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they’ve heard.

Riveting and rich with lyricism, BURIAL RITES evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?

Some great quotes-

“To know what a person has done, and to know who a person is, are very different things.”

“They will see the whore, the madwoman, the murderess, the female dripping blood into the grass and laughing with her mouth choked with dirt. They will say “Agnes” and see the spider, the witch caught in the webbing of her own fateful weaving. They might see the lamb circled by ravens, bleating for a lost mother. But they will not see me. I will not be there.”

“Now comes the darkening sky and a cold wind that passes right through you, as though you are not there, it passes through you as though it does not care whether you are alive or dead, for you will be gone and the wind will still be there…”

The Collector of Dying Breaths

1 Comment

Posted on July 7, 2014

The Collector of Dying Breaths

by M.J. Rose

published by Atria Books

2014

I received this book from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

My Review

It turns out this is the 5th book in the author’s Reincarnationist series, yet that did not take anything away from this story, though reading the 3rd and 4th books might help little with the backstory. I really enjoyed this book, as I love when there is a story behind things such as scents and flowers. I loved the story of the perfumer Rene le Florentin, his apprenticeship with the Monks, and his eventual rise to perfumer of the powerful Catherine de Medici. There was so much espionage, intrigue, and murder in the royal court. Add to that the powerful motivation to find the secret f immortality by collecting the dying breath of a person.

The story goes back and forth between Rene and present day with mythologist Jac L’Etoile. Hers is the story that might be aided by reading the previous two books in the series, but only a little. She becomes embroiled in finishing the work of Rene, after the mysterious death of her brother.

A great read that I did not want to put down- I definitely recommend this book!

Summary

Florence, Italy—1533: An orphan named René le Florentin is plucked from poverty to become Catherine de Medici’s perfumer. Traveling with the young duchessina from Italy to France, René brings with him a cache of secret documents from the monastery where he was trained: recipes for exotic fragrances and potent medicines—and a formula for an alchemic process said to have the potential to reanimate the dead. In France, René becomes not only the greatest perfumer in the country but the most dangerous, creating deadly poisons for his Queen to use against her rivals. But while mixing herbs and essences under the light of flickering candles, Rene doesn’t begin to imagine the tragic and personal consequences for which his lethal potions will be responsible.

Paris, France—The Present: A renowned mythologist, Jac L’Etoile, is trying to recover from personal heartache by throwing herself into her work, learns of the 16th century perfumer who may have been working on an elixir that would unlock the secret to immortality. She becomes obsessed with René le Florentin’s work—particularly when she discovers the dying breathes he had collected during his lifetime. Jac’s efforts put her in the path of her estranged lover, Griffin North, a linguist who has already begun translating René le Florentin’s mysterious formula. Together they confront an eccentric heiress in possession of a world-class art collection. A woman who has her own dark purpose for the elixir… a purpose for which she believes the ends will justify her deadly means. This mesmerizing gothic tale of passion and obsession crisscrosses time, zigzagging from the violent days of Catherine de Medici’s court to twenty-first century France. Fiery and lush, set against deep, wild forests and dimly lit chateaus, The Collector of Dying Breaths illuminates the true path to immortality: the legacies we leave behind.

Vienna Nocturne

1 Comment

Posted on May 26, 2014

Vienna Nocturne

by Vivien Shotwell

published by Ballantine Books

2014

I received this book from the publisher through Librarything in exchange for an honest review.

Summary

In late-eighteenth-century London, a young girl takes her first singing lessons with a mysterious castrato in exile. Her life is forever changed. Having learned everything he can teach her, Anna leaves behind all the security and familiarity of home and journeys to Naples and Venice to struggle and triumph in Italy’s greatest opera houses. Only sixteen, she finds herself in an intoxicating world of theaters, nobility, and vice, overwhelmed by her newfound freedom and fame. Her first bitter experience of love and heartbreak inevitably follow.

Within a few years, Anna is invited to sing in Vienna, the City of Music, by the emperor himself. There, in a teasing game of theft and play, Anna first meets Mozart, a young virtuoso pianist and striving, prodigiously talented composer. They are matched in intellect and talent, and an immediate and undeniable charge forms between the two, despite both being married to others.

As her star rises in Vienna and her personal life deteriorates, Anna experiences an ultimate crisis. During this trying time, her only light is Mozart: his energy, his determination in her, and his art. She, in turn, becomes his hope and inspiration, and his joy, as he writes for her some of his most exquisite and enduring arias—music that will live on as his masterworks.

Rich in historical detail and beautifully wrought by Vivien Shotwell, an author who is herself an opera singer, Vienna Nocturne is a dramatic tour de force of a woman’s struggle to find love and fame in an eighteenth-century world that controls and limits her at every turn.

My Review

Vienna Nocturne is a well written historical fiction novel by first time author Vivien Shotwell, a classically trained singer. It tells the story of real life English soprano Anna Storace, and imagines a very complex and loving relationship between the singer and the composer Wolfgang Mozart. This is a wonderful story of live, passion, and music. The love between Anna and Mozart was so beautifully written,even though no actual evidence exists that Mozart and Storace had an affair, he did write some of his most beautiful arias for her, including the role of Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro. I would definitely recommend this book, especially if you enjoy opera and/or historical fiction.

More about the author

website

http://vivienshotwell.com

Vivien Shotwell is a classically trained singer with degrees from Williams College, the Yale School of Music, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. As an undergraduate voice student at Williams, Shotwell first sang the beautiful aria “Non temer, amato bene” (“Don’t fear, greatly beloved”), which Mozart wrote for and performed with the young soprano Anna Storace, and knew she had to tell their story. A daughter of independent booksellers, Shotwell was born in Colorado, raised in Nova Scotia, and now divides her time between Halifax, Nova Scotia, and New Haven, Connecticut. This is her first novel.

Blood & Beauty

2 Comments

Posted on April 30, 2014

Blood & Beauty – A Novel of The Borgias

by Sarah Dunant

published by Thorndike Press

2013

Summary

Is there a family in history more dazzling, dangerous and notorious than the Borgias?

A powerhouse of the Italian Renaissance, their very name epitomizes the ruthless politics and sexual corruption of the Papacy.

The father, Pope Alexander VI, a consummate politician and a man with a voracious appetite both as Cardinal and Pope.

The younger Juan, womanizer and thug, and their lovely sister, Lucretia, whose very name has become a byword for poison, incest and intrigue.

But how much of the history about this remarkable family is actually true, and how much distorted, filtered through the age old mechanisms of political spin, propaganda and gossip?

What if the truth, the real history, is even more challenging?

“Blood & Beauty: The Borgias” is an epic novel which sets out to capture the scope, the detail, the depth, the color and the complexity of this utterly fascinating family.

My Review

I love books based on historical figures. This gets my old history major juices flowing! Books like this and Dunant’s others-The Birth of Venus and In the Company of the Courtesan –based on history and set in Rome and Venice- are my guilty pleasures. I tried to watch The Borgias on Showtime, but I just couldn’t get behind the idea of Jeremy Irons as the Pope. I have always been interested in the Borgias and how they were portrayed, especially Lucrezia. . In many instances, they have come across as a family of sociopaths, interested only in sex and power. Scandal and the Borgia name have become synonymous. Rumors of incest and murder still hover around them all these years later. Dunant tempers this view. There is definitely the feeling that the Pope and his son Cesare care more about the power they amass than anything else, but that most powerful men of the time behaved the same way. Cardinals had mistresses and children, families married off children to further enhance their own power, and murder was not considered the ultimate sin. This book actually remedied me a little of The Game of Thrones, each character being just another piece on the chessboard. This is a well written, fun book and I would definitely recommend it.