I ran across this quote today and thought it very appropriate here:

No. No wolf wastes time on vengeance, and that is what this is. Vengeance, pure and simple. When people look most vicious, what you are seeing is not their animal side. It is the savagery that only humans can muster. When you see me loyal to my family, then you see the wolf.
Fitz in Robin Hobb's Fool's Fate from the Tawny Man series

Where Do I Start?

It's difficult to know with whom to begin - I've read so many good writers this last year. I believe I'll start with one whose books remain more closely in my memory than most. Sarah Dunant's  books about the lives of three different young Italian women during the Renaissance fairly throb with the tension, repression and creative energy of an era which produced the likes of Da Vinci, Boticelli, Caravagio, Michaelangelo, Machiavelli, Bocaccio, the Medicis, Savanrola and the Borgias. The names themselves conjure up opulence, brilliance, depravity, cruelty and upheaval swathed in the golden hue of Italian sunlight.

Sared Hearts was the first of Dunant's that I read. I was sold on her after that and moved on to The Birth of Venus and In the Company of the Courtesan after that.

In the 15th Century young noblewomen of marriagable age - sixteen in the case of Serafina around whom Sacred Hearts revolves - had two possible futures before them. They could marry a man chosen for them by their family or they could be sent to a convent. If they were not the pretty one or the dutiful one, but rebellious or too smart or one of too many sisters then they were literally sold to a convent with a bride's dowry. Therefore, they became "brides of Christ."  

Serafina was sold away in this manner when she had become too fond of an artist who painted a chapel on her father's premises. She came to the walls of convent Santa Caterina into the care of Suora Zuana, the dispensary mistress. Serafina raged and rebelled against her incarceration, throwing the peace of the convent into disorder and distress. This engaging and passionate young woman's story along with the story of the women who resided with her in Santa Caterina are thrown up against the turmoil of the Roman Catholic Church set on the brink of its own repression and rebellion.

In The Birth of Venus Alessa Cecchi isn't even fifteen when she is married off to a wealthy, older man of Florence. Alessa is a bright young woman who has a love for both learning and sketching. The story follows her through her particular passionate journey during the reign of the de Medicis in northern Italy. A time when the lifestyle of luxury, learning and brilliant art is threatened by the hellfire propounded by Savanarola. Alessa finds her very life and her passion for art at risk.

I mentioned earlier the sunlight of Italy. I've often wondered if possibly it was the sunlight, that particular angle upon the hills, fields, vineyards and seaports that nutures the passion that helps manifest such talented artists. I don't know. But I do know that when I visited Venice (way back in the middle 1960's when I was a young girl of sixteen) I didn't just see the sunlight, I felt it. I don't mean the warmth, I felt something else. It's aura? It's energy? I'm not sure what it is, but I felt it. I've never been anywhere else where the sunlight took on such a presence in itself.

I mention this because the third book of Dunant's that I read, In the Company of the Courtesan, is set in Venice. This Venice of the mid-sixteenth century was full of mystery, secrets and paradoxes.  Great beauty and great ugliness, the powerful and the disempowered live cheek by jowl amidst a city steeped (quite literally) in its own unique history.

The Courtesan Fiammetta and her dwarf companion, Bucino, flee the sack of Rome to rebuild their enterprise in Venice. Together they navigate Venetian society to acquire the wealthy and notable patrons to support her. But it becomes a harrowing and painful learning experience for them both.

Bucino has become one of my favorite characters of late. Sharp-tongued, very intelligent and wise in what we would call "street smarts," I found myself more engaged in his story than Fiammetta's. He reminds me of George R.R. Martin's character Tyrion in the Song of Ice and Fire books.

Overall, I was totally drawn into the atmosphere of the Renaissance in all three books. Without a doubt Dunant has researched the era well, but craft of her words, a sort of polite lyrical quality that serves the era well, had me compelled to turn the page - like I wanted to know what the next stanza of the song would bring.

I recommend all three books to those interested in historical fiction and the Renaissance in particular.

Dunant's next book, Blood and Beauty, about the notorious Borgia family will be out in July of 2012.

Upcoming reviews:
Judith Merkle Riley's Margaret Ashbury novels
Robin Hobb's Rain Wild Chronicles and
Jane Lindskold's Thirteen Orphans books

I'm Back....or Guilt and the Stacks of Unreviewed Books Have Finally Caught Up With Me....

It's been a long time since I've been here....a very long time. A lot and not much has happened in the year or so. Mostly, I have been reading when not letting dogs in and out, mopping up cat erp, vacuuming up dog hair and sending out the occasional resume. No employer has yet seen fit to hire me, so I move on to Social Security and anxiety for my future. Not unlike many Americans my age, I suppose. Reading has helped keep me from pulling out my white hair and annoying those around me with panic attacks and crying fits.

I have also fallen deeply in love with my NOOKcolor. I swore that I would be one of the holdouts who turned up their noses at e-readers for the "real thing." But since the stacks of books had started to take over my room and fall on Fox and Archie as they run madly chasing each other through it, I decided to scope these tekkie magnets out. And the NOOKcolor grabbed my heart immediately with its endearing features of full-color covers, wifi so I can check email and FB without chasing Bud or Stephie off a computer, and....wait for it....FREE BOOKS! I mean....FREE BOOKS!! Be still my blood-pressure-med-supported heart!

So my library has grown by books and bytes! I am not going to review every last one I've read with you, but share those I have found the most interesting - authors I've come to love and want to read more of, both new authors and those who've been around but whom I've just discovered.

It's good to be back!

Making Rounds with Oscar

Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary

By David Dosa, M.D.
Published by Hyperion
Copyright 2010

Dr. Dosa is a geriatrician and assistant professor of medicine at the Warren Alpert Medicine School of Brown University. Several of his patients reside at Steere House, a facility serving the elderly who need extra nursing care. Steere House also serves as residence for several cat. One particular cat, Oscar, lives on the third floor where those who need the most care due to dementia or need end-of-life hospice care reside.

Dr. Dosa begins hearing stories of how Oscar has a gift for identifying those who are nearing death. Being a scientific-minded sort, the good doctor scoffs at first. But as time goes by he becomes curious and begins to interview those families who have had a Steere House resident who was on the receiving end of Oscar’s peculiar services. The book revolves around Dr. Dosa’s supposed skepticism and these interviews.

Having lived with cats for some 40 years now and also having had a mother who had Alzheimer’s disease, I was eager to read this book. However, I was rather disappointed. Dr. Dosa’s skepticism seemed a rather disingenuous device to base the book around. After all, therapy dogs have been around for a long time now, as have cancer-sniffing dogs and those who sense oncoming epileptic and diabetic seizures. We have scientific evidence that the proximity of a pet can lower blood pressure and aid the release of relaxing endorphins. Why could there not be a cat who senses the advent of death?

But then, I have lived with cats and have benefitted from their presence in my life. Dr. Dosa had not. I suppose I should cut him some slack.

I can just see Oscar lifting a hind leg to do his laundry and thinking, “What’s the big deal?”

Spring is Sprung...

...the grass is riz. I wonder where the birdies iz.

Well, the birdies are daily emptying our feeder and attacking the suet with great fervor. We're particularly fond of a pair of Downy Woodpeckers and a pair of Red-Headed Woodpeckers that hang around the suet like it was the office water-cooler. We've also got Chickadees, Sparrows, Starlings, Bluejays, Mourning Doves and darling little Wrens.

Archie - whose feisty little butt that is in the picture - is in doggy Nirvana with birds, chipmunks and squirrels to chase and neighborhood dogs to visit through the fence. He's a lightning streak running from one place to another in the yard. So much to do and see, so little time. Brandy tries to keep up, poor baby, but gives up after a bit in disgusted resignation. And Dusty just snorts, does his patrol around the perimeter (his job, you know, is to keep the world safe from squirrels) then sits like a sentry near the patio, nose ever on the job sniffing the air for any sign of significant intruders (i.e., the aformentioned squirrels - there's one particularly annoying chubby fellow with white ears who totally delights in tantalizing the dogs with tail twitches and stare-downs and has been Dusty's chief nemesis for the last couple years).

As for me, I sit at my computer sending out resumes on these fine spring days. Not fun. Very few Administrative Assistant positions available in the area right now. No big surprise there, but aggravating none-the-less. However, I have been reading some wonderful books! I will be posting reviews of a few within the next few days.

Enjoy these greenly blissful days full of expectations and promises!

Grease Town

Grease Town

By Ann Towell

Published by Tundra Books

Copyright 2010

Juvenile Historical Fiction

Titus Sullivan is a twelve year old boy who stows away on his older brother’s wagon to escape life under the thumbs of his domineering Aunt Sophie. The two siblings arrive in Oil Springs, Ontario, in 1863, to live with their Uncle Amos and seek their fortune in black gold. Titus befriends Moses, the son of freed slaves, on the cusp of a racial riot that changes their lives forever.

I really liked Titus. He’s a plucky sort with a good heart and strong sense of justice. All of Towell’s characters are well drawn and multi-dimensional. The town of Oil Springs and its inhabitants comes alive in all its smelly, oily, rambunctiousness.

I was eagerly reading along until the last third of the book when Titus picked a fist fight with Mercy and then later I just couldn’t quite believe Titus’ silence after the riot. There seemed no justification or repercussions for the fist fight. It left me really puzzled. And the silence seemed more a plot manipulation so that Titus would not have to testify.

But the book does give insight into a little known historical event through the eyes of a charming and likable character. I would recommend it to my young friends.

Bleeding Heart Square

It’s been awhile since I’ve been here. The holiday season bustle kept me busy and very soon I will be in the unenviable position, along with millions of other folks, of being unemployed. And that means without benefits and, well, at my age that’s a huge anxiety producer.

My escape - and my blessed joy - is reading. Reading keeps me sane. Truly. And these wonderful, exciting authors have brought balance to this auldanxiousannie.

I have four book reviews here for your perusal. I’ve been trying to come up with a linking theme for them all, but they are disparate not only in theme but place in time. The first is a mystery with a missing woman and a burgeoning fascist party complicating the life of a young upper-class woman separated from her beastly husband that takes place in 1930’s England, the second a rollicking, swashbuckling romance in Florida of the early 1800’s, the third a How-To for finding balance in our current global consciousness, and the fourth is the last in a beloved series about a wilderness family in upstate New York of the 1820s-30s.

*****

Bleeding Heart Square
by Andrew Taylor
Published by Hyperion
Copyright 2009

“It’s 1934, and the decaying London cul-de-sac of Bleeding Heart Square is an unlikely place of refuge for aristocratic Lydia Langstone. But as she flees her abusive marriage, there is only one person she can turn to... Legend has it that the devil once danced in the square - but is there now a new and sinister presence lurking in its shadows?”
(from the back cover)

Perhaps it is just me, but does anyone else always envision the 1930s in black and white? I have a very difficult time adding color to that era in my mind. My parents were young people at that time and the pictures I have of them are in black and white. Films from that era that I watched and loved as a child (and now - I recently caught Cary Grant and Jean Arthur in “Only Angels Have Wings” on TMC) were in black and white. Black/White photos of the WPA at work during the Great Depression and Okies barely surviving in their tent villages. No color, and the images seem even more intense for the lack of it.

There’s a line in Taylor’s Bleeding Heart Square that perhaps gives us an explanation for this intense lack of color: “He had tried to write a description of her one evening but was unable to get much beyond a list of cliches.” Indeed. There are times when color becomes very limiting and shades of gray are the only way we have to define a thing. Taylor very accurately draws Lydia Langstone’s reserved personality and her cool approach to moving from a life of garish entitlement to living in those shades of gray.

I was fascinated and drawn in by this mystery of the waning of class distinctions, murder definitely most foul, rising fascism in the political miasma of 1930s Britain, and nascent love over kippers and a boiled egg at a neighborhood tea shop.

Miss Penhow’s letters and the unattributed comments regarding same kept the story going when, at times, I felt bogged down in what seemed like too many red herrings and coincidental characters thrown at me. However, all was satisfactorily tied up at the ending.

Definitely recommended to mystery and historical fiction lovers.