Book: Bath Tangle

Title: Bath Tangle
Author: Georgette Heyer
Genre: Regency Romance
Length: 409 pgs

Summary: The Earl of Spenborough has just died, and his only child, daughter Serena Carlow, is devastated. The reading of Lord Spenborough’s will, however, holds a few surprises for stubborn Serena, namely that her inheritance is to be held by a trustee until she marries. But that’s not the worst of it! The trustee is none other than the Marquis of Rotherham, the man she jilted… days before their marriage!

Excerpts:
pg 28 – His hands were his only beauty, for they combined strength with shapeliness. Any of the dandy set would have used all manner of arts to show them off: my Lord Rotherham, dug them into his pockets.

pg 218 – Lady Theresa prophesied disaster for all concerned, and hoped that when Serena was dying an old maid she would remember these words, and be sorry. Meanwhile she remained her affectionate aunt, etc.

Why should you read this book?
The voice is quick and sparkling, easy to read. Serena and Rotherham are hilariously clever, stubborn, and have cutting wits. They literally argue for pages; rather than seeming a gross wordiness from Heyer, the tension between the characters is tangible. Both Serena and Rotherham are used to getting their way, to being in charge, which is great. The other characters are eccentric, and all have their own mini-romance subplots, which is something that annoys me about Heyer’s books: Everyone, and I mean everyone, ends up with a romance. Except if you’re a servant, I think. I’ve only read two of Heyer’s books, so I really shouldn’t assume the other 50+ are the same.

I have to say, however, that after reading Self-Editing for Fiction Writers I cringed through the first half of Bath Tangle, as Heyer breaks just about every rule for contemporary fiction writing. A lot of her backstory is blatantly thrown into pages worth of dialogue about people I’m not sure I care about; I easily jumped more than one entire conversation in the beginning and didn’t feel like I lost a beat of the plot.

From the Notebook: Dickens’s Dictionary of London 1888

Things are definitely crazy here on campus (did I mention I’m a Buckeye?), what with it being my last undergraduate year (!!). Grad school applications are slowly going out, and I will admit that a couple of these posts have been timestamped ahead of time just to keep up.

On to the subject of this post. This past summer I found treasure: Dickens’s Dictionary of London 1888 is amazing. It’s written by Charles Dickens’s son, Charles Dickens, and covers everything from how much admission will cost (according to where you sit) in every major theatre in London, to how a person should walk down the street if you don’t want to get mugged. Here is an interesting article about fog that had me chuckling:

Fogs are, no doubt, not peculiar to London. Even Paris itself can occasionally turn out very respectable work in this way, and the American visitor to England will very probably think, in passing the banks of Newfoundland, that he has very little to learn on the subject of fog. But what Mr Guppy called “a London particular,” and what is more usually known to the natives as a “peasouper,” will very speedily dispel any little hallucination of this sort.

As the east wind brings up the exhalations of the Essex and Kentish marshes, and as the damp-laden winter air prevents the dispersion of the partly consumed carbon from hundreds of thousands of chimneys, the strangest atmospheric compound known to science fills the valley of the Thames. At such times almost all of the senses have their share of trouble. Not only does a strange and worse than Cimmerian darkness hide familiar landmarks from the sight, but the taste and smell are offended by an unhallowed compound of flavours, and all things become greasy and clammy to the touch. During the continuance of a real London fog–which may be black, or grey, or more probably orange-coloured–the happiest of men is he who can stay at home…

From Dickens’s Dictionary of London 1888: An Unconventional Handbook by Charles Dickens © 2006 by Old House Books

So… I basically read this “dictionary” cover-to-cover. Shows how much of a research nerd I am, right? I still can’t believe my luck that I found a guide to London published exactly in the middle of my novel’s time line. Dickens is a wonderful writer, as you can tell by the passage above. Who knew fog could be so interesting? You can tell Dickens loved London, that he knew it intimately, and that he was probably a spirited conversationalist. The first couple of pages in the book include a detailed map of London, which is indispensable for a history writer like me.

So let me ask you writers, have you ever found that one source that proved to make the others pale in comparison? A primary source that gives you an insider look? What about sources that sent you on a wild goose chase? Do you even care about research?

WIP: First Paragraphs

Caricature drawn by Worderella

Everyone talks about how important a first line is, how important the first page is, of any good piece of writing. We go on about how the idea needs to grab the reader, to hook them as one might hook a fish. But we never really give our own examples, unless we’re sure we’ve got it down. And the thing is, I don’t know if I have it down. I’m fairly certain I don’t, if only because I’m a type A perfectionist who second-guesses herself a lot.

So this is what I’m going to do: Below is the hook, and first lines of my working!title Trentwood’s Orphan. Give me your honest opinion, otherwise, I’ll never learn my lesson. But… also keep in mind that this is First Draft B, so I realize it’s still pretty rough.

As always, this is my writing and it is copyright protected, so please, let’s not spread this around and take it for yourself.

The hook for the novel is as follows: A grieving daughter encounters love and ghosts in Victorian England.

And so the novel begins…

Book: Silent in the Grave

Title: Silent in the Grave
Author: Deanna Raybourn
Genre: Historical Mystery
Length: 509 pgs

Summary: Always weak, Sir Edward falls to the floor while he and his wife, Lady Julia, entertain some friends. Julia is sent from the room by her father, but not before a mysterious and dark man, Nicholas Brisbane, warns her that this was very likely murder. Certain Brisbane is mad, Julia disregards his warning until a year later, when she throws off her full-mourning and starts to pack away Edward’s things…only to find a death threat shoved in his desk.

Excerpts:
pg 1 – To say I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband’s dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.

Why should you read this book?
For you historical fiction writers looking for a first-person narrative, this book is a great example from which to learn. Julia is impetuous, frank, and conflicted, all great character traits for a narrator. For those of you writing in the High Victorian era (i.e. late Victorian era, from 1870′s-on), read this book to learn how to drop details about society, class restraints, and aristocratic assumptions without taking away from the story.

Unfortunately for me, I read too much, so many stories start to seem similar and I guess things before I should, like who the killer might be. I did not, however, guess the motive at all and I give Raybourn props for that. An entertaining read, similar in theme to Tasha Alexander’s A Poisoned Season, I’m wondering whether I shouldn’t switch my own 1880′s novel to a first-person narrative in which a young woman loses her husband before she really knew him, thus freeing her to walk about Society the way an umarried woman cannot, and solve mysteries in a Nancy Drew sort of way.

Book: The Wayward Muse

Title: The Wayward Muse
Author: Elizabeth Hickey
Genre: Historical Fiction
Length: 293 pgs

Summary: It is the beginning of the Victorian era, and Jane is a very ugly girl. On an outing with her sister, Jane is spotted by two artists that consider her the most beautiful woman in the world, thus changing her life forever.

Excerpts:
pg 1 – Jane Burden was considered the plainest girl on Holywell Street, and that Oxford slum was home to many worthy candidates for the title. Mary Porter, who was afflicted with a lazy eye and copious freckles, lived there, just across the street from Alice Cunningham, who had crooked, discolored teeth and thinning hair. Number 142 was the residence of Catherine Blair, whose neck and ear had been horribly burned when she was a baby, and whose left leg was somewhat shorter than the right. But even she was considered marginally better looking than Jane.

pg 2 – But it was her expression that truly made Jane Burden plain. For she seldom smiled, and her green eyes, which might have been considered striking on another girl, were empty. They weren’t sad; sadness could be fetching. They were not grave and serious or soft and pleading or tearful and melancholy. They were blank. Jane’s eyes told everyone who met her of her misery and her despair. They told of a girl who had ceased to hope for anything, who had gone deep inside herself to withstand her lot. It made the others uneasy.

pg 53 – Jane only laughed. Rosetti knew something that the people of Holywell street did not. He knew she was a fairy queen. [...] Her silence was now called dignity. Her height and her skinniness were regal rather than ugly.

pg 286 – “What is my mind made of?” asked Jane.
“Oh, I think it’s a willow basket,” said Morris. He put down his pipe and stood up. “Soft and pliable but incredibly resistant. The only way to unravel it would be with great violence and a pair of very sharp scissors.”
Why should you read this book?
Excellent writing, as you’ll find in the excerpts I’ve posted. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, despite Jane’s character, which makes me respect Hickey even more. Once I realized the plot, I almost put the book away, except Hickey’s writing and depiction of the characters stayed my hand. This book is one of the best fiction depictions of a real Victorian marriage that I have read yet; the main characters are real people, and while the story may not be entirely factual, the plot seems to follow the real time-line faithfully. The writing style is simple yet lush, the scenery vivid, the characters organic and sympathetic. Anyone working on making their characters flawed, especially the main character, should read this book as an example of how to maintain your reader’s interest.

Book: The Glass Harmonica

Title: The Glass Harmonica
Author: Louise Marley
Genre: Paranormal Historical Fiction
Length: 369 pgs

Summary: The year is 2018 and Erin is the premiere virtuosa on the glass harmonica, an instrument that, over the centuries, has been known to make its player and select members of the audience go mad. Though she publicly denies these rumors, secretly she is terrified they are true once she starts to see visions of a girl who does not exist.

The year is 1761 and Eilish Eam, an Irish orphan, has been plucked from her unlucky existence to play Benjamin Franklin’s new invention: the glass armonica.

Excerpts:
pg 116 – It was the terror that lurked in [Erin's] nightmares, that stalked her when she was weakest, most vulnerably. It was the fear that made her snap answers to stupid questions, made her impatient and angry at the probing and pushing of interviewers and reporters and historians. She was afraid. She wasn’t afraid of her wraith, of ghosts or visions or manifestations. What she feared was that, like her predecessors, like the ancestral virtuosi who had first played her precious and mystical instrument, her nerves were breaking down. She was afraid she was going mad.

Why should you read this book?
This book is well-written: all the characters have backstories and motivations, and the setting is fully realized. Despite this, I felt no connection with the characters. I read the entire book, but I never felt drawn to the story, wondering what would happen next. And I should have, because this was an interesting idea. As a musician, I loved the history of the glass harmonica; as a historian, I thought Marley’s depiction of Benjamin Franklin was great; as a scientist, I loved the idea of applying music to neuro-therapy. As a writer, I thought something was lacking, which may be because the back cover copy made the story seem more action-oriented, a time-travel similar to The Lake House (which defies so many laws of physics and time-travel, even).

A pleasant read, the one thing that really annoyed me was Marley’s use of “’twas” and “’tis,” beyond the 1761 dialogue. For example: Eilish pushed the basket again, trying to make her two seed coins clink together. Talk brought no food. ‘Twas money she needed. In my opinion, Marley should have stuck with a first-person narrative for the 1761 story, and third-person for the 2018, if she wanted to write like that. But then, another reader will find it charming, and think I’m crazy for not liking it. Such a subjective profession this is…

Book: Liszt’s Kiss

Title: Liszt’s Kiss
Author: Susanne Dunlap
Genre: Historical Fiction
Length: 330 pgs

Summary: Anne, a young pianist about to enter Parisian society during the height of the Musical Romantic Era (1830s, 1840s), has just lost her mother to the cholera epidemic. Her father forbids her from playing the piano. As an outlet, her mother’s friend, Marie d’Agoult, invites her to a piano concert where she sees Liszt for the first time. Anne’s life is forever changed from the moment she matches eyes with Liszt…

Excerpts:
pg 111 – The more she watched, the more she was persuaded that although Liszt leaned in close to Anne and touched her hands to show her how to achieve certain improvements in her technique, everything he did was not really for the benefit of his pupil but was in some fashion on display for Marie herself: the way he moved, the incline of his head, the frequency with which he smiled or cast a soulful glance at the high ceiling, never turning to look in Marie’s direction, yet ensuring that every gesture, every comment, reflected off Anne and she its light over her.

Why should you read this book?
This book is a good example of a story that chose third person omniscient, but might have been better with first-person multiple point-of-view. Dunlap wrote her third-person narrative from the views of her characters anyway, so I’m confused why she didn’t write it in first-person. I felt completely detached from the entire story. I read it because I liked the young doctor Pierre…he was the only character I liked. (Which means Vonnegut was right: always write at least one character for the reader to like.)

The insipid way Anne reacts to things, the two-dimensional father with a mea culpa reason for his coldness, the way the ending felt thrown together…I admit, I’m disappointed in this book. The last two paragraphs, however, were amazing. And yes, I do read the last page first to decide if I’ll like a book. Sometimes it doesn’t work out.

Book: A Poisoned Season

Title: A Poisoned Season
Author: Tasha Alexander
Genre: Historical Mystery
Length: 306 pgs

Summary: It is the start of the summer Season in London, and everyone worth speaking to is whispering about Mr Charles Berry, an alcohol-and-woman-happy man claiming to be the lost descendant of the dauphin (that is, heir to Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette). Lady Emily Ashton, our heroine, becomes suspicious of Mr Berry as items once belonging to his “beloved grande-mere” are stolen from unsuspecting peerage about town. As deaths occur and the thief begins to stalk Emily, rather than running away or hiding behind her dear friend Colin Hargreaves, Emily uses her cleverness and curiosity to solve the mysteries plaguing London.

Excerpts:
pg 5 – “Surely you’ve put aside all thoughts of studying during the Season?” he asked.
“Studying Greek, Mr Berry, is what will get me through the Season.”

pg 132 – His lips brushed my hand. “How do you like the room? I finally realized that if I’m to have any hope of marrying you, I’d have to show you my library first.”

pg 134 – I think had he the presence of mind to propose at that moment, I would have accepted. The combination of hearing him speak in such an enlightened manner and the perfect setting of his library would have been too much to resist.

pg 296 – Added to this angst was Colin’s absence. His actions during the past months had surprised me at every turn. He had not tried to keep me from pursuing my investigations and had offered assistance without taking charge on his own. And now, in the aftermath of it all, I wanted nothing more than to sit with him, in quiet triumph, discussing what had transpired.

I loved to flirt with him, tease him, to discuss Greek with him. But I had not expected to find that, as a partner, he could offer more than that. He challenged me, stimulated my thinking, and offered both comfort and support when I succumbed to frustration. Was it possible that, as his wife, I might grow more than if I remained alone?

Why should you read this book?
This was just the sort of book I needed to read. The voice (written in first person) is amusing, conversational, yet intelligent. We are given detail about the London Season and high society, without it dragging the story. Motives were plausible, and everyone had a story to tell. Even the bit players. And they were interesting stories. Alexander didn’t sugar-coat her description of life back then, especially in terms of relations between men and women, married and single; yet, everything was written tastefully. Read this book for an engaging heroine, a cozy mystery, and a fun read. Fun, I think, because of the pacing and the lively characters. This is the second in what I assume will be a popular series, and I’m thinking of going back to read the first book, which I have yet to do. Give it a try, I think you might like it!

Book: Miss Wonderful

Title: Miss Wonderful
Author: Loretta Chase
Genre: Regency Romance
Length: 342 pgs

Summary: Mirabel Oldridge thought she had everything under control on her Regency property. Her eccentric, distracted father was happily studying his plants. She managed to keep her family home safe from opportunistic managers (at the expense of her one chance at love and marriage). But now, now there is a new problem; one she never thought she would have to face: Alistair Carsington. Carsington is a hero from Waterloo sent to convince Mirabel’s town, to convince Mirabel, that they need a canal that would ruin their picturesque countryside. It certainly doesn’t help that, despite her innate hatred of Carsington and all he threatens to change, Mirabel begins to find herself attracted to the oversensitive, immaculately-dressed, and maddening idiosyncrasies that define him.

Excerpts:
pg 34 – He knew–better than many men, in fact–that a woman’s speech could be fraught with hidden meanings bearing no discernible resemblance to spoken words. He did not always know what a woman meant, but he was usually aware that she meant more than she said, and that the “more” was, more often than not, trouble.

pg 88 – No tear trickled from the too-blue eyes and along the straight nose, and the soft, pink lips didn’t tremble.
Her chin jutted out a bit, but that seemed to be her usual way, looking defiant or stubborn or in general uninterested in trying to please anybody.
All the same, she struck him at this moment as young, far younger than her years…and lost.

pg 93 – “I can walk and talk at the same time,” came Mr Carsington’s deep rumble from behind her.
He was very close behind her, she discovered as she glanced back. “I’m thinking,” she said.
“But women are much more complicated beings than men,” he said. “I believe you can even hold more than one thought in your head at once. Surely you must be able to walk and talk simultaneously.”

pg 95 – She pretended not to understand, though she could not pretend it dismayed her. It had been a very long time since an attractive man had made improper remarks about her person. She’d forgotten how agreeable it was.

pg 121 – He was not used to women, to anyone, studying him so closely. He was not used, he realized, to anyone taking the trouble. No one else looked deeper, past the elegant appearance and charm. He wondered uneasily if anything of value existed beneath the polished surface.

pg 180 – As the unnatural gloom dissipated, Mirabel’s natural bouyancy returned. Few cases were truly hopeless, she told herself. They only seemed so to people lacking courage and imagination. She was not one of those people.
Why should you read this book?
This is the first romance I’ve read where the heroine was older than the hero. Made for an interesting dynamic. I liked how Carsington and Mirabel, though they obviously came from familiar moulds, had defining characteristics and backstories. When I first began this book, I rolled my eyes at yet another Regency romance. But then Carsington became much more than a dandy with a limp, and Mirabel was something more than just an old maid who dropped everything for her family. Even the distracted father had a reason for his eccentric ways. Read this book for plausible motives to the characters’ actions. I personally would have liked to see a little more character development, but then, maybe it wouldn’t have been a strict romance. A good, quick read for those romance readers looking for a little more depth and heart to the fairy tale.

Book: Hood

Title: Hood: The King Raven Trilogy (Book 1)
Author: Stephen R. Lawhead
Genre: Fiction
Length: 472 pgs

Summary: Rhi Bran ap Brychan, heir to the Elfael throne, has never been much for responsibility. Not since his mother died when he was a young boy. Bran is headstrong, selfish, and egotistical; rebellious against his callous and and tyrannous father. But now his father is dead–killed by Norman invaders determined to take over the Welsh and their lands. The people of Elfael have been enslaved, made to pay taxes they have not the money for, forced to work lands that are not their own and thus making it impossible to tend to the year’s harvest: the people of Elfael are starving, and they need a leader. Unfortunatly for Bran, he is their last hope.

Excerpts:
pg 59 – So far as Bran could ell, to reign was merely to invite a perpetual round of frustration and aggravation that lasted from the moment one took the crown until it was laid aside. Only a power-crazed thug like his father would solicit such travail. Any way he looked at it, sovreignty exacted a heavy price, which Bran had seen firsthand and which, now that it came to it, he found himself unwilling to pay.

pg 60 – “Pay tribute to the very brutes that would plunder us if we didn’t,” growled Bran. “That stinks to high heaven.”
“Does it stink worse than death?” asked Iwan. Bran, shamed by the taunt, merely glared.
“It is unjust,” granted Ffreol, trying to soothe, “but that is ever the way of things.”

pg 123 – Bran, working with uncanny calm, placed another arrow on the string, took his time to pull, hold, and aim. When he let fly, the missle sang to its mark. The first warrior was struck and spun completely around by the force of the arrow. The second ran on a few more steps, then halted abruptly, jerked to his full height by the slender oak shaft that slammed into his chest.

pg 138 – Shocked, horrified, mournful, and leaden with sorrow, Merian moved through the first awful day feeling as if the ground she trod was no longer solid beneath her feet–as if the very earth was fragile, delicate, and thin as the shell of a robin’s egg, and as if any moment the crust on which she stood might shatter and she would instantly plunge from the world of light and air into the utter, perpetual, suffocating darkness of the tomb. [...] Anyone observing Merian might have thought her distracted or concerned. Knowing that nothing good could come of any overt distplay of emotion where Bran was concerned, she wallowed her grief and behaved as if the news of Bran’s death was a thing of negligible significance amidst the more troubling news of the murder of Brychan ap Tewdwr and all his warband and the unwarranted Ffreinc advance into neighboring Elfael.

Why should you read this book?
For one thing, it’s the story of Robin Hood set in Wales. Rather than the Saxons fighting the Normans, it is the Welsh, who already have fought with the invading Saxons and come to a grudging level of symbiosis, who now fight against the encroaching and greedy Norman-Ffreinc. Welsh stories tend to fascinate me, if only because they haven’t had much play time in the fiction world, at least by my understanding. However, in the last couple of years I’ve read some excellent books about the Welsh, such as Nectar from a Stone by Jane Guill.

This book, while well-written, could have used some editing in the length, I think. The character development is thorough, and for that reason alone you should read this book. The setting description is vivid and doesn’t take away from the pacing of the narrative. Yet, there were parts that dragged and had me wondering when I was going to read a portion that more closely resembled something of the traditional Robin Hood legend. So, if you’re thinking of reading this book, don’t start it with the Kevin Costner or Errol Flynn versions in mind. This Hood, Bran, is conflicted. He doesn’t want to be a hero; he actually spends most of the book trying to run away. An interesting new spin on the tales of Robin Hood, this book is the first in a trilogy, surprise surprise. The next one is called Scarlet, which I can only assume is a reference to Will Scarlet, Robin Hood’s second-most loyal companion, Little John being the first.