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Thursday, December 27, 2018

Your Next Great Read? Amy and Irv's Book Reviews

Amy's Reviews

Heartstone by Elle Katharine White
4 out of 5 stars

Heartstone is a fantastical retelling of the classic Pride & Prejudice. Elle Katharine White’s version takes place in the land of Arle, most specifically, in Hart’s Run. Aliza Bentaine is an aspiring artist who lives in a world plagued by the threat of the Tekari—lamias, banshees, gryphons, direwolves, and lindworms—creatures who hate humans. Those that fight to protect the humans, Riders, work/bond with the Shani—wyverns, dragons, beoryns—creatures that are friendly to humans.

Alastair Daired is part of the legendary House Pendragon. A contract commissioned by the Lord of Hart’s Run to help rid them of a problem with a gryphon horde brings Daired, among other Riders, to Aliza’s front door, where the two almost immediately butt heads. Besides their early animosity towards one another, it soon becomes apparent that something evil is awakening in Arle, something that will force everyone to stand up and fight. For Aliza, not a warrior herself, she’ll have to rely on her inner strength and the strength of her heart.

Right away, being a revamping of Pride & Prejudice, Heartstone presents itself as extremely accessible seeing as how many people are familiar with the source material.

However, I found this both a blessing and a curse for Heartstone. A blessing, obviously for the reason mentioned above. If you enjoyed Jane Austen’s classic, I’m going to go out on a limb and say you’ll enjoy this updated version as well. I loved kind of having a stepping stone to follow, and I enjoyed the anticipation in seeing how beloved scenes played out in Elle Katharine White’s words.

So why a curse? Well, Elle Katharine White does a wonderful job in creating this awesomely original world with dragons and wyverns, Tekari and Shani. Heartstones, typically given as tokens of love and commitment, literally come from the hearts of the varying creatures. Where women can train and fight alongside men in battle. A place where you can befriend the hobgoblins living in your garden. I just felt like this awesome world was too constrained by the limits of the storyline it had to follow. I still immensely enjoyed Heartstone, but where it truly shined is when it steps out of the intended path, when Elle Katharine White slightly skews the expected motivations or actions of the characters.

Like Elizabeth Bennet, Aliza is strong. But it’s the addition of Alastair Daired in her life, as well as the impending doom on the horizon that forces her to reevaluate her own preconceptions of the notion of strength. The relationship that develops between Aliza and Alastair does mirror precisely that of Darcy and Elizabeth so I find it a little difficult to talk about it without feeling redundant. But the fact that it does mirror its predecessor means that their relationship is quite satisfactory in the end.
Heartstone is very entertaining, and will please readers of the classic as well as lovers of fantasy.


Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
4 out of 5 stars

Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders. Where her grandfather is successful at moneylending, her father not so much. So Miryem takes it upon herself to collect the debt owed to her family, much to the chagrin of the debtors who flaunt their loaned wealth while Miryem’s family starves. However, Miryem’s tenacity draws the attention of the fey-like Staryk who ask Miryem to turn silver into gold, three times. After the third time, Miryem is unwittingly whisked away to the perpetually winter land of the Staryk to be their Queen.

Meanwhile, Wanda and her brother, on the run after a terrible accident at home, happen upon a seemingly deserted cottage in a snow-covered forest. Having nothing to go back to at home, and knowing they’d probably be hanged if they did, they decide to hide out in this seemingly deserted cottage in the woods that seems to anticipate and provide all their needs.

Then there’s Irina whose father, looking to elevate his status and power, marries her off to Tsar Mirnatius. Now Tsarina, Irina discovers her husband is hiding a scorcher of a secret. A secret that could mean Irina’s death.

What I loved most about Spinning Silver was the way Naomi Novik spun (see what I did there!) all these intersecting stories together into one cohesive whole. How these three, strong, different women move seamlessly through each other’s stories while also playing the hero in their own. Also, I loved seeing that they weren’t pitted against each other despite each one ultimately having a different end goal. Too many times, in life and in fiction, I feel like we see the competition between women instead of the support, and it was nice to see that while sometimes one would make a decision that negatively affected another–not out of spite, mind you–there wasn’t any revenge and/or retaliation. They each understood the name of the game, so to speak, and tried to do their best in their respective situations, placing no blame for what the others had to do to succeed.

However, Naomi Novik goes beyond just our three female leads as point-of-view characters. This, if nothing else, made me feel like the story was too jam-packed and brought down a lot of the momentum of the narrative. While I thought she did a good job of making each voice distinctive, I would have liked it better if there weren’t so many.

While I felt like I overall enjoyed Uprooted more than Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik never fails to draw me into her stories with wonderful writing and interestingly unique worlds.



The Lady Traveler’s Guide to Deception with an Unlikely Earl by Victoria Alexander
4.5 out of 5 stars

Harry Armstrong spent years in Egypt at first relishing the adventure of the exotic locale, then later, realizing the sanctity of preserving and protecting the history and art of the relics he was uncovering from those who would sell such artifacts for personal gain. If anything, Harry knows how unforgiving the deserts of Egypt can be, that's why, after the death of a friend about a year ago, Harry left Egypt with no intention of ever going back. Instead, he plans to focus his efforts on writing about his time in Egypt focusing on truth and accuracy, that's why, when he discovers Miss Sidney Honeywell - writing as the widowed Mrs. Gordon - has been regularly penning her Egyptian adventures for a local newspaper, Harry is outraged. Right away he spots inaccuracies in the fanciful way Mrs. Gordon describes her adventures in Egypt. So, Harry does the only thing he can think of, he challenges her to a bet.

Sidney never planned to mislead anyone, she didn't realize that people were actually taking her stories - based upon the journals her grandmother kept of her own adventures in Egypt - as fact, but once she did it was too late to change anything. If it gets out now she'll face great public humiliation as well as possibly losing her writing career, which she loves. That's why she can't ignore Harry Armstrong's challenge to accompany her to Egypt to see for himself how well-acquainted she is with the country. Now, as both Harry and Sidney embark on this journey, they'll both have to keep the secrets they carry from one another.

Whenever I read a historical fiction / romance book that has a strong Egyptian element to it, it's difficult for me not to make comparisons to and / or see the similarities between whatever book I'm reading and the Amelia Peabody series by one Elizabeth Peters. Maybe it's the fact that even in this day and age there are still so many mysteries surrounding things like the pyramids and there's such a vastness to the desert, but the sense of adventure still resonates. And I felt like Victoria Alexander, even unintentionally and probably more so than others I've read, lives up to Peters's precedent.

Although there were times where I thought the plot played it a little too "safe" with how it proceeded, but it does kind of tie into the fact that Sidney would want to keep things down to basics, so to speak, in order to keep herself from being exposed as a fraud. So the storyline follows a very touristy look at Egypt in the 1800's, but it truly excels when it breaks out towards adventure a bit more. I just wish we got a bit more of the adventure.

I loved the contrast between Harry and Sidney and how, in being thrown together on this journey, they bring out of each other what the other was missing. Case in point: the reason that Harry's writing was rejected is not because Sidney’s was already on the market, but because he was a bit too literal and dry with his information as opposed to Sidney being fanciful and descriptive and also leaving out a few of the more unsavory aspects of time in the desert. On Sidney's side: everything she writes is only what she knows through her grandmother's journal as well as what she's studied in classes and lectures. She's never even been out of London. So Harry helps Sidney bring out a more adventurous, risk-taking side giving her true experiences she can write about and Sidney helps Harry see that if you look deep enough you can find beauty in anything and that it's ok to express it as such, it's ok to be entertaining.

Irv's Review


The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis

The Fifth Risk is not Michael Lewis' best work but is, nevertheless, better than most of its genre and an enlightening and enjoyable read. Lewis explores and explains the missions and workings of several federal agencies and the consequences of the appointment of recent department heads.  He can be (and is) brutally frank where he finds leaders who are incompetent--or worse--and gives appropriate praise to those conscientious public servants who indeed serve the public.

Lewis describes the significant and largely unappreciated work of the Departments of Energy and Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Each provides vital services  to the taxpayers, much of which is unknown to the great majority of us. He also describes the unfortunate choices of their new leaders, e.g., Scott Pruitt whose goal seemed to be the destruction of EPA. 

Significant attention is given to the lack of transition efforts following the 2016 presidential election.  The new administration largely ignored the thick binders prepared by department heads which explained operations and procedures.

The book gives one an appreciation of dedicated public servants and a distaste for those who would  through malice or ignorance dismantle our government.  It is recommended reading for anyone who is genuinely interested in the public welfare--and also for those who question the value and competence of our federal agencies.

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