PORTRAIT OF AN UNKNOWN WOMAN by Vanora Bennet

When I read the book, the expression 'You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear' repeatedly came to my thoughts.  This book is basically a Harlequin romance set in the time of Sir Thomas More and Tudor England.  It is the story of Thomas More's ward, Meg Giggs - her education, her interest in medicine, her relationship with her husband (is he who he seems?).  The book is set during a time of religious and political upheaval.

Twice, the painter Hans Holbein the Younger stays in the More home and paints a portrait of the family.  The descriptions of the paintings and the clever descriptions of the hidden meanings in the paintings kept me interested and kept me reading.  I even looked up the two More family paintings on-line and referred to them as I read.

The rest of the book?  The boy meets girl, the unrequited love, the eventual marriage, the second love interest, the happy(ish) ending?  Maybe not so much.

LIBRARY OF SOULS by Ransom Riggs

In Library of Souls, the third and final book in the 'Peculiar Chlldren' series, Jacob has discovered his 'peculiar' power and learns to develop and use it.  The book picks up precisely where the previous one left off.  The children and the ymbrynes have been captured by the wights and Jacob, Emma and Addison (the talking dog) rush to escape the ice fortress and rescue their friends.

Once again, a series of loops allows the group to travel back and forth between modern times and the past - in this case Victorian England - where our heroes discover what really happens to peculiars whose souls have been captured by the villains (who happen to be Miss Peregrine's two brothers).  There is the introduction of an excellent new character - Sharon - a boatman who ferries the group across the river to Devil's Acre.  Sharon serves as navigator, guide, and protector for the group (think 'Charon' of Greek mythology who ferries passengers across the river Styx to Hades).  As Jacob becomes more adept at controlling his peculiar trait, he is able to call upon it throughout to control the group's enemies and, eventually reach a 'happy ending'.

As in the previous books, the narrative is accompanied by a series of vintage postcards from the author's collection.  Here's where this book became a 4 star rather than a 5 star read for me.  In the first two books, the stories seemed to flow hand-in-hand with the illustrations - one enhancing the other.  In this one, I got the feeling that the author had a drawer full of postcards and now needed to figure out how to make the story fit the pictures.  This led to the introduction of characters who contributed nothing to the story - except explain the use of one or another illustration.  I also found the ending to be a bit contrived to give the reader a happy ending.  Still, I don't mind a happy ending and contrived or not, it was still a good read.

A highlight?  The group finds themselves in a convention centre where a Comicon weekend is taking place.  Suddenly, they don't feel so very peculiar.

These are not stand-alone books - to really enjoy them they need to be read as a trilogy and I would very much recommend them.

GOOD KINGS BAD KINGS by Susan Nussbaum

Good Kings, Bad Kings is the winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction - and deservedly so.

This novel tells the stories, in a series of alternating voices, of the residents and staff of the Illinois Learning and Life Skills Centre - an institution for juveniles with disabilities in Chicago. They are stories of hopes and dreams, of desire for love, for independence, for respect; they are stories of friendship, love and caring despite the odds.
Whether the perspective was from a 'resident' or from a 'staffer' - those feelings are the same. It is also a story of life in a nursing home and the truly horrible conditions that people are forced to endure when desire for profit outweighs desire for caring.

The author uses the book as a platform to shed light onto the challenges faced daily by kids like these. She provides us with some hope in the form of caring staff members, but she does not sugar-coat the dim reality that is faced by disabled youth who have no one to care for them.

Susan Nussbaum succeeds in raising questions of institutionalization by giving a voice to those who are themselves institutionalized.

Since I put this book down I find myself thinking about it often. I would most certainly recommend it and would happily read more by this author.

THE SECRET HISTORY by Donna Tartt

The Secret History mimics a Greek tragedy.  Richard Papen, who is studying the Classics is an outsider at a prestigious American college.  He manages to become the sixth student in an Ancient Greek class, whose charismatic teacher normally allows only five students to enrol each year.  The other five students who have been studying together for some time come from a background of wealth and privilege - not at all like Richard's hard-scrabble upbringing. The murder of one of the members of the group is revealed on the first page.  The first half of the book deals with the events leading up to the murder and the murder itself.  In the second half, the remainder of the group must deal with the aftermath of the act.  Their tightly-knit group swiftly declines into fear, recrimination and remorse.

This book could best be described as a psychological thriller.  The unravelling of the group is suspenseful and Donna Tartt is such a good writer that I actually found myself caring about people who would normally cause me to raise my eyebrows at their arrogance and entitlement.  My only complaint?  I would have liked to find out more about their teacher.  There are plenty of hints about his control over his students but ultimately he manages to remain at arms-length and walk away from the situation.

This is a first novel for the author who goes on to become a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist.  I'm not surprised - she is brilliant!

THE WEIGHT OF WATER by Anita Shreve

I am generally ambivalent about Anita Shreve's books.  Usually, I really like parts of them but other parts - not so much.  The Weight of Water is the same for me.  Jean is a photojournalist on assignment to cover a 100 year old murder mystery that occurred on Smuttynose - an island off the coat of Maine.  (I looked it up - this murder really occurred)  Accompanying her are her husband, their small daughter, her brother-in-law and his girlfriend.  Five people, occupying space on a small boat for an extended period of time - it magnifies any marital strain, any jealousy, any petty remarks.  A storm is brewing.

The novel bounces back and forth between Jean and her life and the occupants of a very small home on the island of Smuttynose.  Maren and her husband are Norwegian immigrants who, 100 years ago, shared their home with his brother and sister-in-law, her sister and the occassional long-term boarder.  Five people, occupying space in a very small home for an extended period of time - it magnifies any marital strain, any jealousy, any petty remarks. A storm is brewing.  Because of the weather, the men who earn their living on the sea are unable to return home for the night.  Jean discovers a document written by Maren on her deathbed detailing the accounts of the night when an axe murderer entered the house and brutally killed Maren's sister and her sister-in-law while Maren hid in a cave outside the house.

The part of the book about the Norwegian settlers and the murders was extremely interesting.  There has been speculation for the last 100 years whether the convicted murderer was indeed guilty.  Shreve tells a compelling story in which she presents her version of the events leading up to the murders and what she feels happened.  She paints a grim picture of the isolation of these women and the hardships of their daily lives.  She also gives the women character and personality and I was interested in how they coped with their daily lives.

Unfortunately, I did not feel the same way about the modern group.  I did not find that any of these characters had been fleshed out to the point where I cared whether their lives were grim or glamorous.  The book is worth reading, however, for the 'historical' portion of it.

CLOSE YOUR EYES, HOLD HANDS by Chris Bohjalian

Chris Bohjalian has written a heartbreaking story in “Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands”.  Emily Shepherd's world has collapsed after the nuclear power plant where both her parents work experiences a meltdown.  People die (including her parents), homes and families are torn apart and the finger pointing begins.  And who better to blame than people who are no longer around to defend themselves?  Emily runs away from the temporary evacuation site and finds herself living on the street.

As has been the case in a number of his other books (Midwives, for example), Bohjalian writes convincingly in the voice of a teenaged girl.  The book is written as if it is Emily's journal - the people who help her along the way and those whom she befriends and helps are well fleshed out;  she speaks of the perils of living on the street and the tricks used to enable a person to survive that experience.

I really liked this book (I am a fan of this author).  Bohjalian puts a sentence together beautifully.  He tells a believable story.  Emily Shepard is a character you can care about.

EARTH'S CHILDREN series by Jean M. Auel

The Earth's Children series are my guilty pleasure and I haul them out to read them every couple of years or so.

A young girl is found after an earthquake and rescued by a pre-historic tribe.  She is well-treated but considered an oddity because of her appearance.  She learns the ways of the medicine woman, she learns to hunt, she has a child.  Not everyone loves Ayla, however, and she is forced to leave the tribe and her child and make her own way.

A young man is journeying with his brother.  They encounter several tribes along the way, settling down with them and learning skills from them until leaving to resume their journey.  The brother dies along the way from a cave lion attack that leaves Jondolar severely injured.  He is rescued and nursed back to health by Ayla, who has settled down in a nearby cave with only the animals she has managed to domesticate for company.

At this point, the series becomes a little like a Harlequin Romance against a pre-historic backdrop.  Boy and girl meet and fall in love.  Neither is able to articulate their feeling for eachother, leading to a series of misunderstandings.  However, they are able to work together and between them manage to invent most of the significant developments of the Stone Age.  Eventually, they realize that their feelings for eachother are mutual.

Ayla and Jondolar continue their journey together.  They meet many other people along the way.  There continue to be misunderstandings, breakups and reconciliations.  The most interesting thing about these books are the descriptions of the lives and customs, the ceremonies and festivals of these stone age people.

I really like the whole series and will probably continue to re-read them every few years or so.