Review: Médicis Daughter: A Novel of Marguerite de Valois by Sophie Perinot

Winter, 1564. Beautiful young Princess Margot is summoned to the court of France, where nothing is what it seems and a wrong word can lead to ruin. Known across Europe as Madame la Serpente, Margot’s intimidating mother, Queen Catherine de Médicis, is a powerful force in a country devastated by religious war. Among the crafty nobility of the royal court, Margot learns the intriguing and unspoken rules she must live by to please her poisonous family.

Many years ago I saw the movie Queen Margot and became fascinated with this woman of whom I had heard little before. This book helped me to fill in a lot of the blanks about her life.

It’s quite the tale of a young girl growing to womanhood in a Court controlled by her mother, Catherine de Medici. She is used, as all women of royal blood were in those times, as a pawn in forming alliances and bartering peace. What I love about Marguerite is that she rises above the pettiness, politics and immorality that surrounds her to stand by her cousin and husband Henri of Navarre (who eventually becomes one of the greatest kings of France, Henri VI) and saves him from the barbarity of the St Bartholemew Day Massacre of the French Protestants which was ordered by her mother and brother King Charles.

A wonderfully absorbing read.

Review: The Hook Up by Kristen Callihan

The rules: no kissing on the mouth, no staying the night, no telling anyone, and above all… No falling in love

Anna Jones just wants to finish college and figure out her life. Falling for star quarterback Drew Baylor is certainly not on her to do list. Confident and charming, he lives in the limelight and is way too gorgeous for his own good. If only she could ignore his heated stares and stop thinking about doing hot and dirty things with him. Easy right?

Too bad he’s committed to making her break every rule…

Football has been good to Drew. It’s given him recognition, two National Championships, and the Heisman. But what he really craves is sexy yet prickly Anna Jones. Her cutting humor and blatant disregard for his fame turns him on like nothing else. But there’s one problem: she’s shut him down. Completely.
That is until a chance encounter leads to the hottest sex of their lives, along with the possibility of something great. Unfortunately, Anna wants it to remain a hook up. Now it’s up to Drew to tempt her with more: more sex, more satisfaction, more time with him. Until she’s truly hooked. It’s a good thing Drew knows all about winning.

I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I don’t usually read NA books because I find them annoying. All the angst and drama llamas usually drives me crazy, but while this book had the expected and necessary break-up of the two main characters, it was handled really well without unnecessary ridiculous over-reaction.

I liked both the main characters, Anna and Drew, although Anna got on my nerves a little bit at times. One thing I did find annoying though, is the “no kissing” plot point. This author used it in another one of her books. I think it’s stupid. There was quite a bit of shmexy times in this book, which I didn’t mind, but others might not like.

This book actually made me feel all swoony and this hasn’t happened for me for a long time.

Review: The Swans of 5th Avenue by Melanie Benjamin

Centered on two dynamic, complicated, and compelling protagonists—Truman Capote and Babe Paley—this book is steeped in the glamour and perfumed and smoky atmosphere of New York’s high society. Babe Paley—known for her high-profile marriage to CBS founder William Paley and her ranking in the International Best-Dressed Hall of Fame—was one of the reigning monarchs of New York’s high society in the 1950s. Replete with gossip, scandal, betrayal, and a vibrant cast of real-life supporting characters, readers will be seduced by this startling new look at the infamous society swans.

I loved this book. The 50s and 60s are such a glamour period and New York was at the very heart of that glamour. I loved the feeling of being an “insider” to all this fabulousness. The designer clothes, the long lunches (at which no one ate anything), the amazing parties, the houses in glorious locations, the yachts, the jewels – I could go on, but I think you get the picture. I loved every second of it.

Of course, this glamour drew so many people to New York at this time in history and so it was for Truman Capote. He managed to insinuate himself into the lives of these amazing people and paid for the privilege with his salacious stories and fresh gossip. Having said that though, if this book is to be believed (and it is historical fiction so there must be a little truth to it) the relationship he had with Babe Paley was that rare friendship that very few people manage to find. They were soul mates both seeing the unloved child in each other. Which makes what Truman did all the more difficult to understand.

Capote relied on these women and their wealthy husbands to provide him the entree he needed for his writing, and then as his own star rose, on the publication of firstly Breakfast at Tiffany’s and in particular In Cold Blood, he turned his back on them and lost himself in the fame. The ultimate betrayal came when he started publishing the stories these women had told him in confidence for the rest of the world to read. It’s hard to understand Capote’s motives. It seems that he was out of ideas for new books, but he could have probably lived on the success of In Cold Blood for the rest of his life. I guess we’ll never know why he did it, but he was ostracised by those who had loved him most and died alone.

This was a great read and so easy to become immersed in. The author ,in her notes at the end of the book, says that she loves to imagine the conversations that her characters have and she did a wonderful job of it too. For all their wealth and glamour most of the women were lonely, tragic people who were brought up to be adornments for men. Rarely was their love in these marriages or friendships with any depth. I actually felt very sad for them all, even Truman.

 

Review: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

When four graduates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they’re broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome-but that will define his life forever.

I started out giving this book 5 stars, but after letting the dust settle I’ve decided 3 stars is more accurate. I only ever give 5 stars to books that I love and will want to re-read at some stage. I can honestly say that I will never want to re-read this book.

I’m afraid that I may be in the minority here, but I did not love this book. I found the relentless misery of Jude’s life overdone. While what happened to him was awful, the fact that he refused to get any help chipped away at any sympathy or empathy that I felt for him.

Perhaps that is the fault of the writing which I found alternatively quite lovely and overwrought. I also felt that it was lacking in character development. I didn’t find any of the characters that well developed, even Jude. Maybe if there had been a little less attention paid to depicting his constant cutting and self-mutilation we could have had more time devoted to fleshing out the other characters.

I also found some aspects of the plot unbelievable. For example, all four of the main characters became fabulously wealthy and famous. The other thing I found puzzling was how Willem and Jude ended up in a relationship. Willem sitting on the sofa one day and deciding that his feelings toward Jude had deepened, is not really an explanation.

I think that Daniel Mendelsohn in his review for the NY Review of Books best sums up my feelings about this book:

“You suspect that Yanagihara wanted Jude to be one of those doomed golden children around whose disintegrations certain beloved novels revolve—Sebastian Flyte, say, in Brideshead Revisited. But the problem with Jude is that, from the start, he’s a pill: you never care enough about him to get emotionally involved in the first place, let alone affected by his demise. Sometimes I wondered whether even Yanagihara liked him. There is something punitive in the contrived and unredeemed quality of Jude’s endless sufferings; it sometimes feels as if the author is working off a private emotion of her own.“

All in all I’m not sorry I read this book. It was one of those stories that I thought about when I wasn’t reading it and continued to ponder after I’d finished. One thing I did wonder though; would the reaction to this book be different if the character of Jude had been a woman? I’m not sure I have an answer to that but it certainly got me thinking.

Review: The Road to Ruin: how Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin destroyed their own government by Niki Savva

Abbott ignored all the warnings, from beginning to end — the public ones, the private ones, from his friends, his colleagues, the media.

His colleagues were not being disloyal. They did not feel they had betrayed him; they believed he had betrayed them. Their motives were honourable. They didn’t want him to fail; they wanted the government to succeed, and they wanted the Coalition re-elected.

Abbott and Credlin had played it harder and rougher than anybody else to get where they wanted to be. But they proved incapable of managing their own office, much less the government. Then, when it was over, when it was crystal-clear to everyone that they had failed, when everyone else could see why they had failed, she played the gender card while he played the victim.

Wow! What a story. A great political insiders look at an incredibly dysfunctional PMs office. Some of the things revealed in this book you would doubt were real if Savva didn’t use named sources to back up what she was saying.

It highlighted how completely delusional Abbott was and how little self-awareness he had. Not to mention that he was a pathological liar. If he decided that something happened one way and everyone else saw it happen another way there is no way you could convince him that he was wrong. The perfect example is the promises he made the night before the election which he then proceeded to break. Abbott convinced himself that he hadn’t lied and that was the end of the story, no matter what anyone else said to him. Credlin played into these aspects of Abbott’s personality. Her behaviour was inexcusable and destructive.

Savva’s writing style took a bit of getting used to. It was quite choppy and jumped around a bit, but there is no doubting her access to the people who matter in Canberra.

This book was one I needed to read. I wanted to know if Abbott was really as incompetent as I’d always believed him to be. This definitely confirmed it.

Review: A Duchess in Name by Amanda Weaver

Victoria Carson never expected love. An American heiress and graduate of Lady Grantham’s finishing school, she’s been groomed since birth to marry an English title—the grander the better. So when the man chosen for her, the forbidding Earl of Dunnley, seems to hate her on sight, she understands that it can’t matter. Love can have no place in this arrangement.

Andrew Hargrave has little use for his title and even less for his cold, disinterested parents. Determined to make his own way, he’s devoted to his life in Italy working as an archaeologist. Until the collapse of his family’s fortune drags him back to England to a marriage he never wanted and a woman he doesn’t care to know.

Wild attraction is an unwanted complication for them both, though it forms the most fragile of bonds. Their marriage of convenience isn’t so intolerable after all—but it may not be enough when the deception that bound them is finally revealed.

I loved this book! I loved the heroine, Victoria. She’s no shrinking violet and I enjoyed that about her. She is totally accepting of what the future has in store for her. She has no allusions that her life will include a happy marriage but she’s prepared to do her duty without complaint. Her strength of character was impressive. Andrew was perhaps not as finely drawn a character as Victoria. He wasn’t a hero that I swooned all over but the pair of them together just worked.

I also really enjoyed the period this book was set in. I’ve been reading historical romances for a long time but most of them are Regency so this period took some getting used to, particularly mentions of telephones and electricity.

Of course this being a romance Andrew and Victoria’s road to happiness was not smooth, but the writer’s skill was such that, although you knew there would have to be dramas, they weren’t overdone or cliched.

I found this book hard to put down. In fact I read it in almost one sitting with no sleep and it’s a long time since I’ve done that. I also had major feels, something else that hasn’t happened with a book for quite a while.

If you’re a fan of romance, historical or otherwise, then you really need to read this book.

Happy reading.

Review: Goodbye Sarajevo by Atka Reid and Hana Schofield

May, 1992. Hana is twelve years old when she is put on one of the last UN evacuation buses fleeing the besieged city of Sarajevo. Her twenty-one-year-old sister, Atka staying behind to look after their five younger siblings, is there to say goodbye. Thinking that they will be apart for only a few weeks, they make a promise to each other to be brave.

Set in the middle of the bloodiest European conflict since the Second World War, Goodbye Sarajevo is a moving and compelling true story of courage, hope and extraordinary human kindness.

The Balkan War of the 90s is one of those events that I have a morbid fascination with. I struggle to understand how it happened, how people that you had been happily living next to for years could suddenly turn into your enemy, how the Western nations could just stand back and watch the atrocities that were being committed and do nothing. It is a subject I return to over and over again, trying to garner some insight into, but I always come up empty.

Unfortunately this book added little to my understanding and I don’t suppose I should have expected it to as it is the retelling of two sisters experience of the war, one in Sarajevo and the other in Zagreb. While what they went through was awful and I can’t imagine having to live through something like that myself, I felt somewhat detached from it. This may be  because it was written in English which is not their first language. I found the language quite simplistic and I think that this impacted their ability to fully describe the horrors they endured.

However, I’m not sorry that I read this book particularly at this time in history when the world is again in the midst of a horrific war and millions of refugees are now homeless and looking to start new lives in safety and security. I think it was a good reminder that nobody chooses to be stuck in the middle of a war and that when you are placed in that situation you will do anything and everything you can to ensure the survival of your family. In that respect, this book is definitely worth reading.

New Release: This Book Will Change Your Life by Amanda Weaver

College was supposed to be where Hannah’s hard work paid off, but the major in honors chemistry she’s been working towards since childhood is slipping away. Worse, she’s not sure she wants it anymore. Salvation comes from an unlikely place—a used bookstore and Ben, the passionate college senior who works there.

Ben’s trapped in a life mapped out for him. Trapped in a future career as a lawyer to make his father happy. Trapped pursuing a girl he doesn’t even like because she fits into a world he doesn’t want, but can’t escape. But then he meets Hannah. And for the first time, he knows what it means to truly want something.

So he gives in to being her friend. Then to wanting her. Then to kissing her. And within the freedom of his impulsivity, both of their carefully planned lives begin to fall apart…

I absolutely loved this book. I’m usually not a fan of new adult books but this story was perfect. I loved the 2 main characters, Hannah & Ben. They were both dealing with realistic issues and watching them sort those out, as well as their relationship, was a privilege. There were times when I wanted to slap Ben and tell him to wake up to himself. The boy was a bit clueless but so adorable it was easy to forgive him. Hannah had a good head on her shoulders and I’m glad that she stuck to her guns when it came to Ben and his choices. I loved that the bookshop in the story was almost a character on its own. It had a life to it. Any booklover will understand exactly what I mean. Magical things happened in that bookshop.

It was so nice to read a book that didn’t need to create some unbelievable major drama for there to be a climax in the story and that’s what I loved about it. All credit to the author for resisting the urge to overcook things. It was a believable and realistic story without needing to have some sort of hook or gimmick to spice things up.

If you’re looking for a story that you can get lost in, with a plot line that is believable enough to see yourself in, then this is your book. I laughed, I got a bit teary, I got a bit ragey and I was disappointed when I got to the end. That sums up a great book for me.

Review: Great-Aunt Sophia’s Lessons for Bombshells

Grace Cavanaugh is hell-bent on proving her Women’s Studies dissertation thesis that beauty only leads to misery. And what better research subject than her great-aunt Sophia, a former B-movie star? Now eighty-five and facing surgery, Sophia has asked Grace for company. . . . 

Grace imagines a helpless, lonely old woman, forced to turn to a great-niece she barely knows. Instead she finds the aging diva holding court in a Pebble Beach mansion, oozing a bombshell-itude- arthritis and wrinkles be damned- that captivates every male in sight. To Grace’s dismay, her great aunt decides a perfect distraction would be transforming the frumpy feminist into a femme fatale who purrs for her suitors . . . or devours them. She ordains classes in everything from carb cutting to lingerie, culminating in a challenging final exam. The newly svelte Grace must test her wiles on both devilishly handsome and morally corrupt Declan and sensitive but painfully awkward Dr. Andrew. 

Newly unleashed desires and the discovery of a closely held family secret threaten the bookworm-turned-babe’s entire feminist upbringing. Her thesis gone sadly awry, Grace wonders if her great-aunt is right: Will trusting her heart lead her to find beauty in the most unexpected places?

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I quite enjoyed this book. It was fun joining Grace on her journey of discovery.. It was a little disappointing that Grace’s transformation involved her losing weight to be seen as sexy though.

Great-Aunt Sophia was a wonderful character. At 85 she was sprightly, intelligent, crafty, and somebody I would love to know. She had plans for Grace and nothing was going to stop her. Yes she made Grace over in her own image but what an image! Grace had been brought up in a very alternative environment by parents who believed in substance over style. Part of Grace’s journey was finding the happy medium.

Sophia sets Grace the task of trying to get the two men in her life, her doctor, Andrew and the young man she has taken under her wing, Declan to fall in love with her. They are totally different men – Andrew is quite and unassuming whilst Declan is all charm and a bit of a player. Grace, with Sophia’s advice, decides to play one off against the other. Unfortunately I felt that the outcome of this competition was telegraphed. We get to know Declan quite well but Dr Andrew is a mystery and what we do find out about him is not that flattering. Sophia’s big secret is revealed right towards the end of the book and it helps to crystallise Grace’s decision.

I liked Grace as a character. She genuinely struggles with the ideals she’s always held and is pursuing for her doctoral dissertation and what Sophia is teaching her. In the end Grace manages to find a balance she’s happy with. I felt the characterisations of Declan and Andrew were lacking. Andrew was a bit of a placeholder for me. We hardly see him and what we do is one-dimensional. Declan was better drawn but coloured by Grace’s initial impressions of him. We did get some of Declan’s point-of-view so we got more of an insight into him, but I still felt they were a bit thin.

Like I said, I did enjoy this book. If you’re looking for a light read that will leave a smile on your face and you like some nostalgia, then this is for you.

Happy Reading.

New Release: Deep by Kylie Scott

In the city of sin, you have to go big or go home…
Ben Nicholson is the only man that has ever made ordinary girl Lizzy Rollins feel both completely safe and crazy with desire. The problem is, Ben is the irresistibly sexy bass player for Stage Dive, and, no matter how much Lizzy may wish otherwise, he’s only looking for a good time. Besides, Lizzy doesn’t stand a chance – not unless she can get him to see beyond the fact that she’s his bandmate’s little sister.

When Lizzy finds herself in trouble in Las Vegas, Ben is there to bail her out. But after one big mistake, the two quickly learn that what happens in Vegas, doesn’t always stay there. Now Lizzy and Ben are connected in the deepest way possible…but will it lead to something more?

Okay, I’ll be honest here. I read the first two books in the Stage Dive series and I really didn’t like them that much. They were an enjoyable read but, for me, they lacked that something that made me love them. So when I saw Deep pop up on NetGalley I was in two minds as to whether I should request it, but seeing as it was free I thought “why not?”. After all, I’ve read a lot worse books and not suffered any long-lasting effects.

Well, I’m not sure what happened between book 2 and this one, but I LOVED this book. It gave me all of the feels. I liked Lizzy and Ben. It was obvious from the start that these two had chemistry but Lizzy’s sister’s new boyfriend, and drummer with the band, Mal, warned Ben off. So began a texting friendship with an edge. I had to laugh at some of their texting conversations. When the band goes to Vegas for Mal and Anne’s wedding, Ben and Lizzy give into their attraction with somewhat disastrous consequences for them.

What can I say about these two and their relationship. Ben is such a BOY! By that I mean his communication skills completely suck as well as his ability to make a decision.  Poor Lizzy. She’s trying to do the right thing for herself and the future but Ben’s keeps stuffing up. What a rollercoaster ride their relationship is and I loved every twist and turn, high and low. I really felt for Lizzy and was with her the whole way. I wanted to cry and scream and tear my hair out with frustration over Ben’s antics and I loved every minute of it.

In fact, I enjoyed this book so much that I went back and re-read the first two books as well as the third book, Lead, about Jimmy the band’s singer and they were wonderful.

So, if you like your men all tattooed up and hot as hell then get your hands on this book. In fact I suggest you grab the whole series and embrace the Stage Dive experience.

Happy reading.

Complementary copy provided by the author/publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.