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Out of the Shadows by Joanne Rendell
Published by NAL Trade, an imprint of Penguin
All her life, Clara’s mother has told her about their family’s alleged connection Mary Shelley, a story that Clara largely ignored. After her mother dies, though, Clare feels driven to discover whether her mother’s stories are true. And really, it is just as well that Clara has something other than just her work to occupy her, since her fiancé Anthony is extremely tied up in his research for a new cancer drug.
“Out of the Shadows” is the second of Rendell’s three books I have read, and I’m sold. I will absolutely be reading her first book, as well as whatever else she comes out with. Although her characters tend to be New York academics, her stories are not derivative , even of one another. In “Out of the Shadows,” Clara is a young woman searching for her identity and a way to connect with her mother and her past. One of my favorite thing about Rendell’s books is that her protagonists’ romantic lives are secondary to the story, they are part of these women’s lives so they must inform the story, but they are not the main focus.
In addition to Clara’s storyline, Rendell also included small snippets of Shelley’s young life, up through her meeting of Shelley. Although I did not find these sections as engaging as Clara’s storyline, they did add a depth to the work as a whole and helped to give a feel for the woman about whom Clara was searching for information. This look at Mary Shelley’s life also gave “Out of the Shadows” more power when it began to explore many of the same themes as did Shelley’s seminal work, “Frankenstein.”
This review was done with a book received from the publisher.
* 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 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.
How to Buy a Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson, narrated by Renee Raudman
Published in Audio by Tantor Audio
Published in Print by Plue, an imprint of Penguin
Synopsis:
Carley Wells doesn’t have a whole lot going for her. She’s heavy, not particularly good at school, and not exactly popular in rich and chic Fox Glen. Eager to make her shine for her 16th birthday: they are going to commission an author to write a novel to coordinate with her birthday party theme. The author, Bree McEnroy, has been tasked with writing a book that Carley will love, but as Carley doesn’t think much of books and reading, this may be a more difficult commission than Bree bargained for. Hunter Kay is another complicating factor. As Carley’s best friend and a huge fan of the written word he initially spends a good deal of time helping Bree and Carley’s creative process along, but it becomes increasingly apparent that Hunter’s use of alcohol and prescription drugs is a much bigger problem than he wants to let on – a revelation that has great impact on all of the people around him.
Thoughts on the story:
I am completely amazed that I didn’t absolutely hate each and every character. Everyone, with the exception of the author, Bree McEnroy, had entirely too much money for his or her own good, to the point where frivolous purchasing what the name of the game. I mean, for pete’s sake, Carley’s parents basically bought her a novelist in order to impress their friends and make her look better for colleges. What could be more ridiculous than that? Then there’s the fact that the only things most of the kids in Fox Glen seemed to care about were drugs and sex – maybe being popular and fitting in as well. Really, not much could sound less appealing to me.
And yet, Egan Gibson managed to humanize her main characters to a degree I would not expect, given their most prominent qualities. In fact, I was really impressed with how, not only did I not completely hate the characters, I actually felt sympathy for most of them. And that’s really saying something, because ‘poor little rich girl’ doesn’t usually elicit much sympathy from me. That, in my opinion, is an impressive quality in an author.
Thoughts on the audio production:
I very much enjoyed Renee Raudman’s work narrating “How to Buy a Love of Reading.” I thought that she was well cast in the part, and she gave both life and depth to her characters. And, praises be, she did not interpret them as whiny, as she might have most annoyingly done. Her narration certainly helped keep Egan Gibson’s characters in the realm of surprisingly sympathetic, instead of simply obnoxious spoiled brats.
Overall:
I was definitely nervous during the first part of this book that I was going to hate the characters so much that I wouldn’t be able to finish it, but I was pleasantly surprised by the depth introduced by Egan Gibson and the way that Raudman’s narration supported the story. Recommended.
Note: although the chief protagonist of the story is a high school girl, “How to Buy a Love of Reading” doesn’t come across as a YA book. I believe that adults, as well as older teens, would enjoy this story.
The audiobook has a similar cover design as the hardcover, but “How to Buy a Love of Reading” was recently released in paperback, with this new cover.
Buy this book from:
Powells: Audio/Print*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound: Audio/Print*
Amazon: Audio/Print*
This review was done with a book received from the Tantor audio.
* 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.
Dracula in Loveby Karen Essex Published by Doubleday, an imprint of Random House
As a maligned and psychologically abused child, Mina Murray has only ever wanted from her adult life is normalcy. She renounced her strange ways after being sent to boarding school and now it seems she may have achieved the normalcy she has always desired; not only has she had success as a teacher at her former boarding school, she is now engaged to the handsome young solicitor, Jonathan Harker. All is not as it seems with Mina, however. She has been dreaming incredibly sensual dreams, all of which involve a handsome, mysterious stranger, who Mina is certain she has seen somewhere before.
“Dracula” is a literary classic, but it is written entirely from the point of view of the men in the story. “Dracula in Love” is Karen Essex’s response to Stoker opus, told entirely from Mina’s point of view. Instead of remaining a cardboard cutout of the apex of Victorian womanhood, Essex’s Mina is a fully fleshed hotblooded woman. She yearns not only for the normalcy of marriage, but for the intimacies that accompany it. And even being engaged doesn’t keep her for lusting after her erotic dreams.
When people think about “Dracula,” they often forget just how much Stoker’s masterpiece is about sex, because it is disguised for Victorian sensibilities. But really, vampire myths are sex central: the penetration, the exchanging of bodily fluids. What I really appreciated about “Dracula in Love” is that Essex acknowledged how much the story was about sex and incorporated it into her story, without being needlessly salacious and graphic. It was really a very fine line to walk and people who are sensitive to sex in their novels may think that she’s taken it slightly too far, but I thought she achieved a very good balance.
A delightful re-imagining of “Dracula” and vampire lore with a strong female perspective. I loved Essex’s take on the vampire mythology as well. Highly recommended.
This review was done with a book received from the publisher.
* 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.
bermudaonion (Kathy)
Sandy
Stephanie
Beth F
Michelle
Out of the Shadows by Joanne Rendell
The Gendarme
How to Buy a Love of Reading 
The audiobook has a similar cover design as the hardcover, but “How to Buy a Love of Reading” was recently released in paperback, with this new cover.
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