A Lady in the Smoke by Karen Odden

From the publisher: Karen Odden’s enthralling debut historical mystery transports readers to Victorian England, where a terrifying railway disaster plunges a headstrong young noblewoman into a conspiracy that reaches to the highest corridors of power. Lady Elizabeth Fraser is on her way back to her ancestral country estate when her train careens off the rails and bursts into flames. Though she is injured, she manages to drag herself and her unconscious mother out of the wreckage, and amid the chaos that ensues, a brilliant young railway surgeon saves her mother’s life. Elizabeth feels an immediate connection with Paul Wilcox—though society would never deem a medical man eligible for the daughter of an earl. 

A Lady in the Smoke: A Victorian Mystery by Karen Odden could be the first in a new series by Anne Perry. A Victorian era woman of gentle birth feels a mutual attraction with a professional man - in this case a railway surgeon - while investigating a crime. It is told in the first person, but otherwise has a very similar feel to Perry’s The Cater Street Hangman. The trial of someone unjustly accused of murder as part of a conspiracy reminded me of Perry’s William Monk series as well. From page 291 of the advance reader copy: “Paul’s trial had been so very important to all of us, but his was only one of dozens that would take place during these two weeks. All these people’s lives, I thought as I looked about me, dependent upon a few words here and there, the momentary inclination of a judge, the presence or absence of a particular witness.”

The main character is a determined and strong woman. She puts herself in some situations that stretch believability, but that’s typical for mysteries. She and the surgeon fall in love quickly, but that’s typical for romance novels. The book seems very well researched. Although the author admits to taking “liberties” with Victorian England, the historical details rang true. 

A Lady in the Smoke is more mystery than romance, but the resolution of both threads was satisfying for this fan. I enjoyed having the railway be a prominent plot point, especially as I read the book while travelling by train. I found the writing style lively and engaging and was thoroughly engrossed. 

For now, this book is only available as an ebook. I hope it is made available in print as well. I believe it will find many fans among readers of historical mysteries. I read a digital advance reader copy. The book will be available for purchase on March 29. It will be available as an ebook through the Galesburg Public Library.

Sun, Stone, and Shadows: 20 Great Mexican Short Stories, edited by Jorge F. Hernández

The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest. This year, Galesburg will be reading Sun, Stone, and Shadows: 20 Great Mexican Short Stories, and there will be a variety of programs to celebrate Latino history and culture through May 5, 2016. Visit www.galesburglibrary.org for a complete schedule of events, or stop by the library starting March 7. Free copies of the book are available while supplies last.

Like most story anthologies, Sun, Stone, and Shadows contained stories I admired, stories I didn’t necessarily enjoy but that I’m still thinking about, stories I thought were lame, and stories I just did not get.

The stories are grouped into five sections. My favorite section overall was “The Fantastic Unreal,” and my favorite story in the collection was Permission Granted by Edmundo Valadés

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The most famous author represented in the collection is arguably Octavio Paz, and I found his story My Life with the Wave to be disturbing and mind bending but also thought provoking. The language is very provocative, and the story is filled with nice imagery. Three other stories are grouped with it in “The Fantastic Unreal.” Chac-Mool by Carlos Fuentes could have been an episode on the TV show The X-Files. History According to Pao Cheng by Salvador Elizondo had a nice twist at the end, and Francisco Tario’s The Night of the Margaret Rose was also very evocative and made me feel as I were in the story with the narrator.

The second section is “Scenes from Mexican Reality,” and they are mostly sad or melancholy tales. I especially liked the touchingThe Mist by Juan de la Cabada. The third section is “The Tangible Past.” The Carnival of the Bullets by Martín Luis Guzmán has a strong and terrible narrative that is hard to forget. Permission Granted by Edmundo Valadés is very good, the most entertaining story in the collection, with an excellent ending.

The fourth section (the weakest, in my opinion) is “The Unexpected in Everyday, Urban Life.” I found Inés Arredondo’s The Shunammite predictable and thought the ending of Cooking Lesson by Rosario Castellanos fell flat. The fifth section is “Intimate Imagination.”  The Switchman by Juan José Arreola is about trains, so a good choice for Galesburg, and The Square by Juan García Ponce is full of lovely descriptions that gave me a real sense of place.

I really enjoyed this selection of works intended to acquaint me with Mexican literature and recommend it to anyone interested in Mexican culture and to everyone in the Galesburg area. Sun, Stone, and Shadows is available in English and Spanish at the Galesburg Public Library.

Wing and Claw Book 1: Forest of Wonders by Linda Sue Park

From the publisher: The first book in a planned trilogy, Linda Sue Park’s enchanting new fantasy-adventure richly explores the links between magic and botany, family and duty, environment and home.

Wing and Claw Book 1: Forest of Wonders, has much to recommend it. The cover is gorgeous, and the main character, Raffa, is admirable and talented. His cousin makes fun of him for his small size, but he is the better apothecary student.

Raffa, his parents, his cousin, and his uncle live in a village and are all apothecaries (or apothecaries in the making). They live near the Forest of Wonders, where they collect plants that can be used to lessen pain and heal injuries. Raffa has a gift, an ability to intuit whether combinations will help or harm. He saves a badly injured bat, and it leads to consequences he couldn’t possibly have imagined.

There is conflict in the story, and peer pressure, and bad behavior by adults. For once, a bat is one of the good characters (although at the expense of crows and owls, who are depicted as doing bad things). For my taste, for a book called Forest of Wonders, too much of the story was set in the city and not enough in the Forest itself. I hope more time will be spent in the Forest in the remaining two books in the series.

The story has the nice message that every life is worth saving. It also questions the relationship between humans and animals and the rights that animals have. The book does not stand alone; it ends very much in the middle of the story. Wing and Claw Book 1: Forest of Wonders is intended for children age 8-12/grades 3-7. I think it will appeal to children who love animals and nature (although parents should be aware that some animals are intentionally injured in the story). A 3.5 star book.

I read an advance reader's edition of Wing and Claw Book 1: Forest of Wonders. It was released on March 1.

The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell

This book has so many elements: literary analysis, unresolved grief, unfulfilled needs, dreams, familial traits, legacies, romantic tension and mysterious inheritance. The main character, Samantha Whipple, is at once flippant, rash, immature and emotionally lost. She is the last descendant the the literary family of the Brontes. She is overshadowed and manipulated by her unstable father, who now deceased, continues to hold sway over her beyond death.

The cover's synopsis sounded mildly intriguing with the story's tie-in to the Bronte family. A few conversations in the beginning are humorously clever but become tiresome as the book goes on. Samantha repeatedly expresses her dislikes of all kinds of things, from authors to beverages. At first the reader may feel sympathy for this awkward, socially inept, insecure young woman. But after awhile, this reader felt like saying, "Oh, stop it!" to both Samantha and the author.

Discussions between Samantha and her Oxford professor regarding literature, the odd personalities of the Bronte siblings, their behaviors and their writings, are convoluted. I began to wonder if some of these conversations might not be some of the author's master's thesis disguised as part of the novel. The professor comes off to me as also manipulative and unstable. Samantha's attraction to him strikes me as emotional transference from her father to this man.

The Madwoman Upstairs is Catherine Lowell's first novel. It is due out in March 2016. The book left me creeped-out. Dark psychological implications of many elements of the story were burdensome. They left me wishing for a fresh breeze and sunshine. Oddly, that's the way Charlotte and Emily Bronte's books made me feel years ago when I read them. By invoking the same reactions, maybe Lowell is better, after all, than I thought.

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith is a slightly different story of art theft and forgery. It revolves around 17th C. artist Sara de Vos, her time and her art, 20th C. art history graduate student Eleanor (Ellie) Shipley and 20th C. lawyer Marty de Groot, wealthy American descendant of the original Dutch owner of a painting by Sara.

In 1958 Ellie, who restores and conserves paintings to support herself, is approached and agrees to make a copy of the de Vos painting. It is Ellie's one and only forgery. Exactingly done, except for one slight difference not detectable to the naked eye, the copy is switched with the original. It is not until several months later that de Groot becomes aware that what is now hanging in his apartment is no longer the original. So begins his quest to get it back.

Just as 17th C. paintings have layers of canvas, sizing, ground, paint, varnish and accumulated dirt, Smith builds the multiple layers of his story through the layers of his characters - their personal situations, their personalities, their surroundings and their times. He moves from late 1950s New York City back to mid-1600s Holland, as well as forward to Australia, circa 2000.

Smith does a good job of describing his settings. The reader can clearly picture the old, established wealth of de Groot's apartment, the grunge of Ellie's one-room Brooklyn apartment and the buildings, scenery and details of Sara's Holland. Each character has their own tensions and sadness which the reader is called upon to feel and understand. The complexities of this trio, how they parallel each other and intertwine, make for an enjoyable story.

While some reviewers of advance copies of the book have raved that it is compelling, the best they have ever read, "almost perfect," I cannot use such hyperbole. I felt it was competently done, of mid-level depth of character development and above average in setting the scene, whether on canvas or in the world of the protagonists.

I enjoyed it much more than The Goldfinch. Readers who liked Girl with a Pearl Earring or who like art/theft/forgery plots will likely enjoy this take on true and false art, which also questions what other things of life may also be true or false.: love, value, skill?

The book is due to be published April 5, 2016. This is Dominic Smith's fourth novel.

Written in the Stars by Aisha Saeed

Genres: Contemporary, YA
Release Date: March 24th, 2015

Source: Checked out from GPL

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This heart-wrenching novel explores what it is like to be thrust into an unwanted marriage. Has Naila’s fate been written in the stars? Or can she still make her own destiny?

Naila’s conservative immigrant parents have always said the same thing: She may choose what to study, how to wear her hair, and what to be when she grows up—but they will choose her husband. Following their cultural tradition, they will plan an arranged marriage for her. And until then, dating—even friendship with a boy—is forbidden. When Naila breaks their rule by falling in love with Saif, her parents are livid. Convinced she has forgotten who she truly is, they travel to Pakistan to visit relatives and explore their roots. But Naila’s vacation turns into a nightmare when she learns that plans have changed—her parents have found her a husband and they want her to marry him, now! Despite her greatest efforts, Naila is aghast to find herself cut off from everything and everyone she once knew. Her only hope of escape is Saif . . . if he can find her before it’s too late.

Written in the Stars is the kind of book that I should have loved but I didn't. Diversity? Check. Forbidden romance? Check. A female lead you want to root for? Check. So why didn’t I love it? For starters, it is written in a very simplistic middle grade style which is odd given the age of the characters and the things happening.

I also think the book is a lot more rushed than it should be. It takes a lot of time to build to the climax but not enough time is spent providing readers with a detailed resolution. We find out what happens in the epilogue but given the risk and the issues at hand, it would have been a lot nicer if more time were spent actually hashing that bit out.

I also struggled a lot with the cruelty of her parents because even though this is SUCH AN important issue and it happens a LOT, I also feel like the way the community was represented as a whole could have been done better? Not all south-east asian parents are trying to marry their kids off at the youngest age possible and are super conservative. If we got more positive depictions, I think it would have helped highlight the issue even more without stereotyping an entire community.

That said, I do think the author did a good job with exploring the issue of forced arranged marriages and how horrible they can be. In the second half of the book, Nalia’s emotions become so real and her pain  and it hurts. 

So overall, I would recommend this book to readers because the right people will fall in love and every story needs to be told & read.

Beside Myself by Ann Morgan

This is a very well-written novel about identical twin sisters who are about 6 years old. One is named Helen and she is popular, smart and their mother's favorite. The other one is named Ellie, and she has behavioral problems, trouble in school and absolutely no friends. Helen spends a lot of time making fun of her sister, and getting her friends to do the same. Helen makes up games to play with Ellie that showcase her "simple" personality, and they really are quite cruel. Even in school the teachers treat Ellie as if she isn't as smart as everyone else, which further alienates Ellie from everyone. One day Helen decides to play a game by switching places with Ellie. Ellie agrees, and they change clothes and Helen fixes her own hair to look like Ellie's trademark messy braid, and she braids Ellie's hair properly, as Helen, and they manage to fool the first person they see. What a hoot! Helen wants to take it a step further and try to trick their Mother. When they get home, their Mother is completely distracted because her new gentlemen friend has come a calling, so she introduces the girls by their switched names. The next morning Ellie refuses to switch back. Helen keeps insisting that she isn't Ellie, but her Mother, who is not the greatest mother in the world, doesn't believe her. Helen becomes frustrated, and starts to act out, so everyone really does think she is Ellie, both at home and at school. This is where things start to go downhill for Helen, and this is where the story begins. If you like books that are somewhat dark and creepy, that deal with mental illness, behavioral problems and someone's waking nightmare, then this book is for you! Read On!