Please feel free to email me at jen(at)devourerofbooks.com for any questions or comments.
I will accept certain books for review, however please read my review policy before contacting me to review your book.
Support Devourer of Books
If you purchase books through any of my widgets, or choose to donate through PayPal, you will be putting a small amount towards hosting, giveaway and other site-related costs.
Footsteps in the Darkby Georgette Heyer, narrated by Maureen O’Brien
Published in audio by BBC Audiobooks America
Synopsis:
Siblings Peter, Margaret, and Celia, and Celia’s husband Charles have just inherited a ramshackle old house from their uncle. It is a bit primitive, without electricity or phone, but what is really worrying, to the women in particular, are the stories of a ghostly and dangerous monk who haunts the house and the grounds. Peter and Charles are less convinced about the existence of ghosts, so when odd things begin happening, they are sure that there is a logical explanation for the whole thing, and set out to discover what it is.
Thoughts on the story:
I love Heyer’s mysteries so much, even if they are quite general quite predictable. In a mixed blessing, this one had decided less silly characters than the other Heyer mysteries I have read (“Death in the Stocks” really took the cake for insipid yet fun characters, although they also made an appearance in “They Found Him Dead“). This one was a bit different than the others, since there was less of a strong police presence investigating the crime and more a focus on the effected family trying to figure out what, exactly, was going on. And, to my surprise, the ending of “Footsteps in the Dark” was not nearly as predictable as the other two. I was completely wrong in my guess as to whom the Monk was, although I figured out the true occupation of another character quite a long time before Heyer’s reveal.
Thoughts on the audio production:
I’m so-so on Maureen O’Brien as narrator in this production. On one hand, her voice was just as I might have imagined the one belonging to one of Heyer’s stories. On the other hand, she spoke far too quickly in the beginning, so much so that I considered using my iPod to slow down the speed of the audiobook. I’m still not sure whether she slowed down or I simply acclimated to it, but I had a difficult time catching what she said initially. Now, this does fit the feel of Heyer, but it also impeded the listening process, so on the whole I think it was a negative. Also, one of the secondary characters were French, and her French accent was absolutely painful, really the stereotypical bad French accent.
Overall:
Not mind blowing in story or narration, but still quite enjoyable. Heyer mysteries are a great palate cleanser, I really need to get a backlog of them both in print and audio.
The Gendarmeby Mark Mustian
Published by Amy Einhorn Books, an imprint of Penguin
The first thing that caught my attention about “The Gendarme” was the arresting cover. I found it very reminiscent of the National Geographic cover of the Afghan girl, if a slightly less intense gaze. When I read the jacket copy and saw that it was about Turkey and the Armenians in WWI, I was totally sold.
And, although, it was not at all what I expected, “The Gendarme” did not disappoint.
Emmet Cohn was born Ahmet Khan in Turkey at the end of the 19th century. Unfortunately, he does not remember much of anything before he woke up in a British hospital during World War I with severe head trauma. He made it to the United States due to the determination of his American nurse, whom he married. After a long life in which he considered himself American first and foremost, Emmet, 92 and recently diagnosed with a brain tumor, has become dreaming again of Turkey. Specifically, he is dreaming of being a gendarme – which is odd, because he is positive he was a Turkish solider, not a gendarme – who is taking a group of Armenians to Syria and is beguiled by an Armenian girl with two different colored eyes, Araxie.
I really enjoyed “The Gendarme,” the way it worked through memory, sins of the past, aging, sickness, duty, and repentance. The two storylines were worked together masterfully, particularly considering there was not always a visual cue of transition. One thing bled into another with ease and occasionally when the transition was overly quick, it was wonderfully evocative of exactly what Emmet must have been going through with his tumor and increasingly frequent lapses between waking and dreams. I adored the uncertainty – shared by Emmett himself – of whether or not we could trust him as a narrator, or whether him tumor and previous head trauma left him unreliable. There were times I felt that I shouldn’t buy the blossoming relationship between Emmett and Araxie, with all of the hardships between them, but Mustian wrote them so compellingly that I had a difficult time not believing their relationship, unlikely as it may have seemed.
In “The Gendarme,” Mustian blends history and the human spirit beautifully. Highly recommended.
This review was done with a book received from BEA.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.
Numbby Sean Ferrell
Published by Harper Perennial, an imprint of Harper Collins
One afternoon after a sandstorm, a man walks out of the desert and into a circus. He’s wearing a bloody suit, with no memory and no feeling anywhere in his body. For lack of more information, everyone just calls him Numb. With his gift – or curse, depending on your point of view – of not feeling pain, Numb is an obvious match for the freakshow of the circus, piercing his hands with an awful lot of things. He’s relatively happy at the circus, until the manager of the circus decides to put him in a cage with the circus’ lion. At that point, Numb knows it is time to move on, and try to make his way in the world and discover what he can about his past.
What a charming, quirky story this is. I loved Numb, both the story and the character. Quite often when a character does have a real name – and very infrequently is he actually addressed as ‘Numb’ – it keeps me at a remove from them. I didn’t find this to be the case at all for Numb, however. He obviously wasn’t your typical guy, from his affliction to his dubious fame, but he had an everyman sort of feel regardless. What “Numb” was really about was identity: both finding out who you have been and figuring out who you want to be.
There is some some and language, but I think the themes and readability of “Numb” makes it great not just for adults, but for older teens as well. Recommended.
This review was done with a book received from Erica at Harper Perennial.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.
The Report by Jessica Francis Kane
Published by Graywolf Press
In 1943, a shelter in Bethnal Green, London became the site of the largest civilian accident of World War II. Citizens of Bethnal Green, anticipating a retaliatory air strike, crowded into the station. Before 9pm, 173 of them were dead, although the Germans did not bomb London that night. After the accident, there was much finger-pointing in many directions: from the lack of light and the late arrival of the constable to the general existence of Jewish refugees. In order to quell unrest, the government appoints the young and popular local magistrate, Laurence Dunne, to conduct a private investigation. He works with surprising speed to create a report he hopes will mend the broken ties of the city in general and Bethnal Green in particular.
When I picked up “The Report,” I expected a competent novelization of a fascinating historical event and mystery. I also expected the account to be somewhat dry, if interesting, based both on the less than titilating title and the fact that it is essentially the story of how a governmental report came to be. Still, I was interested enough in the Bethnal Green tragedy, of which I had never heard before, to give it a go.
How wrong I was to be expecting something dry!
Kane takes an ensemble cast of characters and manages to make all of their stories compelling, without spending so much time on character development that she loses the thread of the story. A major element in this success is the inclusion of a secondary storyline, that of a documentary film maker – who has his own ties to the tragedy – who contacts Dunne to enlist his help in a documentary that will memorialize the 30th anniversary of Dunne’s report. This storyline serves as a nice foil to the primary storyline, moving events along and explaining what is necessary, without being overly expository.
“The Report” is a surprisingly compelling novel about a seemingly unlikely subject. A fabulous read if you are at all curious to explore history and human nature. Highly recommended.
This review was done with a book received from the publisher for review.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.
The last thing Gail Caldwell expected to find when training her dog Clementine was a best friend, but that is exactly what she found in Caroline Knapp, and more. Gail and Caroline’s dog trainer suggested then spend some time together because they were so alike. Both women had puppies they’d gotten less than a year ago, they were both writers, both recovering alcoholics, athletic, and incredibly independent. From that fateful meeting, the women formed a lasting bond that would sustain them until Caroline’s death of lung cancer, a short time after being diagnosed.
Released earlier this August, “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” is getting a lot of buzz. While I was at BEA, a representative of Random House listed it as one of the publishing house’s top 5 picks for book clubs this coming year. I must say, for about 140 pages, I didn’t really see it, and that is a long time in a book that is less than 190 pages long.
It also took me about that long to realize what my problem was with it. “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” is billed as a memoir of Gail and Caroline’s friendship, but it was almost more of an extended essay about their friendship, without the strong narrative of many of my favorite memoirs. Not that Caldwell didn’t have a strong voice, she does, but her writing milieu is on the critical side. Caroline was the columnist and memoirist in their relationship. Knowing this I’m not surprised that “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” was so much more like an essay, but it did not grab me as quickly as a more narrative-driven version of this story might have.
Of course, I can imagine that in many was, the essay structure was easier to write than the narrative would have been. There is so much love and pain, friendship and grief in this story, that for Gail to have gone deep into the story of her relationship with Caroline might have been deeply painful. Unfortunately, the pain is much of what makes this story so compelling. It was during Caroline’s sickness and after her death, the last 40 or so pages, that “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” really came into its own. Suddenly the pages seemed to be almost turning themselves, and my heart was fully immersed in this story.
Although I’m sure it would have been infinitely more difficult to write, I wish that Caldwell had been able to infuse more of the emotion from the end of “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” into the beginning of the book. However, even though I more appreciated the book for what it was than truly loved it, I think it is a must-read for any woman who has lost a close friend.
This review was done with a book received at BEA.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.
Beth F
Sandy
bermudaonion (Kathy)
Stephanie
Trisha
Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer, narrated by Maureen O’Brien
The Gendarme
Recent Comments