Posted:
Mar 7, 2013
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Contemporary, General Fiction

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The Colour Of Tea

thecolourofteaAuthor: Hannah Tunnicliffe
First Published: June 2011
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Canada
320 pages (paperback)

I bought this book as a part of a 3 books for $10 deal at Chapters not too long ago. I had picked out 2 books I wanted to read, but didn’t know what to get as the third book. After some browsing through the selection available for this deal, I settled on this one, The Colour Of Tea, for no good reason except that I like tea and enjoying afternoon tea sessions (I saw the macarons on the cover!) I was kind of disappointed by the novel, sadly, and it didn’t really help that the novel was in present tense, which I am not a big fan of … but as it cost only $3-ish, I can’t complain too much, I suppose.

This novel is about a 30-something year old woman named Grace who is experiencing something of a mid-life crisis. She is a “trailing spouse”, meaning she moves with her husband wherever his job takes him around the world. They are currently in Macau, though she is originally from London and her husband, from Australia. Grace is lamenting the fact that she has never had a stable job of her own, usually picking up a waitressing job wherever they happen to be living. Compounding this situation is her infertility. She and her husband have spent much money on fertility treatments in hopes of starting a family, but when her premature menopause hits, Grace feels as if she has lost a purpose in life, and feels incredible guilt. And as a last part of her midlife crises situation, she finds herself becoming ridiculously attracted to a friend of her’s, a French chef named Leon.

Spontaneously one day, Grace decides to use all the money they have been saving for fertility treatments and open up a little cafe in Macau. Her husband does not seem too excited about this idea but Grace plows ahead with the plan anyway. The cafe is named Lillian’s, and specializes in macarons, a sweet confectionery that is popular for eating during afternoon tea. As Lillian’s grows and becomes successful, Grace finds herself slowly finding new friends and figuring out a new purpose for her life.

This book is this author’s debut novel, and I think for a first book, it is alright, but I did not find out it was a first novel until after I finished the book. The story is actually quite okay — it wasn’t particularly exciting, but it was a feel-good story and was great for when I wanted to unwind and just read something light. Sometimes I wasn’t sure where the heck the plot was heading to, but I just kept reading and let it do its own thing and eventually I reached the last page. I was never fully absorbed into the story but I never got too bored with the story either.

My biggest problem was characterization, which I felt was quite poor in this book. I could write a little something about many of the characters (most of them were kind of one dimensional to me), but the character that I felt was the weakest was the main character, Grace. Grace’s character had too many bottled up feelings: she was depressed by her infertility, her lack of friends in Macau, and she had a strained history with her mother, a character who seems to loom in her thoughts quite often and frequently bring up feelings of bitterness and regret. That’s a LOT of feelings, and she was, understandably, sad.

What I didn’t understand was why she would complain about nobody ever communicating with her when she worked so hard to avoid people. She rarely ever made an effort to communicate her many feelings, yet complained that nobody understood her. Really, she seemed quite socially awkward. That was quite frustrating because I know people like that in real life and it drives me bonkers.

One more thing about Grace that I had a bit of a difficult time wrapping my head around is how she went from having no business knowledge (at least, none that was stated) to owning an ridiculously successful cafe that she created from scratch, in less than a year. I mean, that’s possible, but it takes a bit of a leap of faith on my part. Granted, I don’t know anything about small businesses myself, but I feel like it should not have been as easy as Grace’s own experience.

Sadly, I don’t think I will recommend this book. If you are interested, by all means go ahead, don’t let me stop you! But if you are unsure, I don’t think you are missing much if you skip this book over. And FYI, the title is not misspelled! Colour is the British/Canadian spelling :)

My Rating:

Posted:
Mar 4, 2013
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Historical Fiction

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The Lady Of The Rivers

the-lady-of-the-riversAuthor: Philippa Gregory
First Published: September 2011
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Series: The Cousins’ War #3
443 pages (hardcover)

I’m a fan of Philippa Gregory so no surprise that I’d eventually read this book of her’s. I still remember being very excited seeing a brand new looking copy of this book, in hardcover, at the thrift store and paid only a few dollars for it :D (I swear, it looks like it was never read … guess someone got it as a gift or something but didn’t want it? Mine now, haha). I’m slowly catching up with the Cousins’ War series, I’m hoping I’ll be able to read the 4th book — The Kingmaker’s Daughter — before book 5 comes out!

The Lady Of The Rivers takes place, chronologically, before books #1 and #2. So if you want to read the books in order of events rather than publication, this is the one to start with (at the time of this writing). This novel is about Jacquetta, the mother of Elizabeth Woodville, who was Queen Consort of King Edward IV of England. The novel starts with Jacquetta as a young lady, witnessing the end of the Hundred Years War between England and France and watching how Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for supposed witchcraft. This event shapes Jacquetta’s attitude towards “magic” from an early age — Jacquetta’s family has a legendary linage tracing back to a water goddess named Melusina. The women of her family line are rumored to be able to have the Sight and foretell the future. Of course, such things are declared to be witchcraft in medieval England and after watching Joan of Arc die, Jacquetta learns caution.

Despite always trying to hide her visions, the Duke of Bedford marries her specifically for her skills and abilities. I want to clarify that nothing in the novel suggests Jacquetta knows any “real magic”, but rather, everyone, including herself, thinks she can foretells the future (this is compounded by the fact that she has visions that coincidentally come true; whether you believe it is magic or not is another story!) Jacquetta respects her husband, who has raised her up to be the Duchess of Bedford and a very important lady of the realm. However, when he dies, Jacquetta decides to follow her heart and marries her husband’s squire, a nobody named Richard Woodville.

Even though she is looked down upon and punished for marrying so far beneath her, Jacquetta and Richard have a wonderful, loving relationship which produces a whooping 14 children. Jacquetta can’t be any happier but perilous times draw close and her new husband is sent out to battle over and over again as England embroils itself in a civil war. Jacquetta unwillingly finds herself in the middle of it all, as Queen Margaret’s closest friend and advisor. All the while, Jacquetta wonders what the future of her many children will be like, in a time when everyone’s future — even the king and queen’s — is so uncertain.

Comparing this novel to Gregory’s first two in this series, I found The Lady of the Rivers to be a tad weaker than its predecessors. For one, I wasn’t particularly interested in Jacquetta prior to reading this novel. Really, I read this book because I love Philippa Gregory’s stories. As I read this book, I did find a new appreciation for this little-known character, but her story just didn’t seem to have the same excitement or fast pace as the first two books. She was in the middle of the action, but she never really participated, not in my eyes at least. I know it sounds like I didn’t like this book, but I assure you, I really did! I just didn’t like it as much as the first two books.

In this book we have the same magical elements that are present in The White Queen, the book that was about Jacquetta’s daughter. I don’t actually remember what I said about the magical elements in The White Queen (I think I liked it). Anyway, I liked it in this book too. I am pretty sure some readers may not like it because, hey, what is magic doing in a historical fiction novel?! But I think it fit really well. People really did believe that witchcraft and alchemy and all that stuff really existed back then, and it was reflected in this novel. Jacquetta may or may not actually have had any supernatural powers, but she (and many others) believed she did, moreso when her visions and foretellings came true. Also, it was pleasantly different angle to write a historical novel in, to make the story a little larger than life.

I just read The Queen of Last Hopes by Susan Higginbotham before this book, so I naturally noticed a huge difference in the depictions of the Lancasters and Yorks. This book and the Higginbotham book are both from the Lancaster perspective, but they each depict the Lancasters in very, very different lights. In The Lady of the Rivers, the Lancaster king and queen are shown to be completely inept, immature and hell-bent on revenge. In The Queen of Last Hopes, the Lancaster king and queen were much more mature, and a loving couple unfortunately swept up in a civil war due to a cousin’s ambition and greed. There’s nothing good or bad about the huge difference in depictions, it was just something that I found interesting since I read these two books consecutively. Just wanted to mention it!

I liked reading about Jacquetta. I never would have thought of her as an interesting character before this novel, and I did, indeed, find her interesting. I liked the storyline (which some say was overly simplified, but that works for me) though the characters were a bit “bleh” — they didn’t feel very real, though maybe that’s just me. I think it’s worth a read, though I would not say anything to anyone who wants to skip it over.

My Rating:

Posted:
Mar 1, 2013
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Historical Fiction

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The Queen of Last Hopes

Author: Susan Higginbotham
First Published: January 2011
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
345 pages (paperback)

A lot of his-fics on the War of Roses seem to focus primarily on the York side of the battle. This novel decides to focus on the Lancaster side of the battle, a story that is told much less often. The title refers to Margaret of Anjou, the queen of King Henry VI (Lancaster side) during the war and this story is supposed to focus on her tale. I say “supposed to” because despite the title, I found the novel focused on the entire Lancaster story, not just Margaret. Margaret certainly got more chapters, but I never once felt that this novel is “her story”.

For those of you unfamiliar with the War of Roses, it was a war between two branches of the Plantagenet family, an English ruling house, around mid-1400′s. In this novel, in the beginning, the current king is King Henry VI, of the Lancaster branch of the family tree, and his wife, Queen Margaret. Henry was a kind and forgiving man. He marries Margaret of Anjou (a place in France) and together they have one son. What makes Henry’s reign a little difficult for him is the fact that he is so kind and forgiving, people took advantage of it. Also, his father was Henry V who was known to be a fierce warrior and leader, and Henry VI was the complete opposite of him. He also took a French bride which upset some people. Lastly, he was considered “mad”; Henry VI had some lengthy episodes of what they called “madness” — basically he clammed up and couldn’t speak and barely moved, for months and months.

His throne is usurped by his cousin Edward from the York side of the Plantagenet family tree. Henry VI fails to do much due to his condition, and so, his wife Margaret assumes unofficial control and fights bitterly for her husband’s throne. They encounter all sorts of heartbreaking  and tragic moments, such as being separated from one another, having their most loyal subjects killed, and betrayal. Time and time again, it seems like all hope is lost for their cause and that the usurper will get to sit on Henry’s throne forever.

As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t get the vibe that this novel was about Margaret. Rather, it felt like it was about the entire war, from a Lancaster point of view. It was written in first-person point of views of various characters.  Margaret had the most chapters, but in between her’s were various other’s. Everyone else’s chapters came and go as it fit the story; none of the other characters’ chapters were continuous like Margaret’s. I thought that was kind of silly because to me, it seemed like the novel should have been written from a third-person point of view, rather than just throw in a random character chapter because it suited the story at the time.

The characters also did not feel very real or fleshed out for me. They felt very flat, which was disappointing. I don’t think I would have cared if everyone else was flat if Margaret, at least, was interesting and three dimensional, but wasn’t. She actually came off — to me, at least — as an indecisive and poor leader, and the novel made it sound like the reason the Lancasters were losing the war was because of this queen and her “womanly ways”.  This novel is very rich in detail and I thought it was extremely well researched, but perhaps because of this, it did read a bit like a textbook in narrative format. I suppose the writing style just wasn’t my cup of tea. It focused a lot more on facts than character development, and as a result, I didn’t feel as engaged as I hoped to be.

The Queen of Last Hopes failed to impress me much. It isn’t a bad book or anything. But it’s only just ‘okay’ for me.

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Posted:
Feb 23, 2013
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Historical Fiction

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The Lady Elizabeth

Author: Alison Weir
First Published: April 2008
Publisher: Ballantine Books
512 pages (trade paperback)

The Lady Elizabeth is a novel about Elizabeth I’s life from toddlerhood to when she is declared the new Queen of England. It’s a pretty straightforward book, almost like a biography that is written narratively. The book is split into three sections: The King’s Daughter, The King’s Sister and The Queen’s Sister. Each section details her life when she was in each role. Throughout the novel, this novel tries to give perspective into why Elizabeth I became the famous Virgin Queen she is known to be today.

If you already know the general story of Elizabeth before she became Queen, then there are not going to be very many surprises in this book for you. When I first got this book, I actually was more interested in Queen Elizabeth’s reign and didn’t realize this book had nothing much to do with her actual reign. It has everything about Elizabeth up to the moment Queen Mary I dies. So, this wasn’t exactly what I was looking for and I suppose my opinion of this novel is a bit coloured by that. However, I guess it’s my own fault for thinking it was going to include her reign even though it did not really give any hints that it would.

Overall, I liked this book but it did not feel as thrilling or irresistible a read as Alison Weir’s other two books I’ve read. I am already kind of familiar with Elizabeth’s pre-queen life, a large chunk of which I read about in Alison Weir’s other historical novel, Innocent Traitor. The overlap of that time period that Jane (from Innocent Traitor) and Elizabeth shared felt like a rerun of an episode to me since the same author wrote both books. However, I think if you never read an Alison Weir book, or you never read anything about Elizabeth before, you will likely find this book a lot more exciting. I really like Alison Weir’s historical novels because she is a historian herself and she tries to stick to the facts, and only makes things up to fill in unknown gaps in history. I also particularly like that she tries to include as much of the actual known dialogues/quotes that characters have spoken.

There are some new fictional bits in this book you may not encounter in other books — mainly, they are plots to explain certain gaps in our present understanding of Elizabeth’s life. For example, the rumors about Elizabeth and Thomas Seymour. Nobody really knows what went on between them, historically. This book gives one possible guess (I mean, that’s the great thing about historical fiction: you can fill in the gaps of historical knowledge for fun with no repercussions).  I enjoy the speculation as well, and I like reading the little author’s note at the end of Weir’s books where she explains why she thought it could have happened this way or that way.

Overall, this was a solid novel. I think my very slight disappointment with it is due more to my own expectations and familiarity with the author’s perspective on Elizabeth than the quality of the novel itself. Like I said, if you don’t know anything about Elizabeth or you never read a Weir book before, I think you would enjoy it more.

My Rating:

Posted:
Feb 21, 2013
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Historical Fiction

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Royal Harlot

Author: Susan Holloway Scott
First Published: 2007
Publisher: New American Library
358 pages (trade paperback)

This is a novel about Barbara Palmer, the Countess of Castlemaine, who was one of the main mistresses of King Charles II, during the period of Restoration England. Historically, she was known to have been a great influence on King Charles, so much so that people would call her the Uncrowned Queen. She was known to be promiscuous and extravagant, leading her to have left a rather negative view of herself throughout the centuries.

Royal Harlot is not a novel that seeks to bring “another side” to the story of Barbara Palmer (at least, I did not get that impression). She is presented just as negatively, I think, in this novel as in history. It is a straightforward story about Barbara’s life as King Charles II’s mistress, beginning from when Oliver Cromwell’s government was still in power. 15 year old Barbara is stunningly gorgeous, but is not the “proper lady” that her mother would have liked her to be. Barbara is spirited and cheerful, but also self centered, calculating and very good at stringing men along by their noses. She’s terribly unfaithful to her husband, Roger, and has all sorts of sexual relations with men. Her biggest catch of all is, of course, the king himself.

Barbara and Charles begin a not-so-secret relationship. Barbara is pleased to be the center of Charles’ life and enjoys being at court, throwing parties, showing off, and accepting lavish gifts from all sorts of people hoping she can wave some of her influence over the king. Barbara has the most power over Charles and she knows it. She is perfectly happy to use her relationship with Charles to her advantage.

If liking the main character, who is in a first person voice, is very important to you, then you may struggle a bit with Royal Harlot. Barbara is not easily likeable in this book. As mentioned earlier, she is self centered and enjoys playing the role of a poor little victimized woman. She remembers all the slights and insults people have done to her and is perfectly willing to wait patiently, even for years, to get her revenge. Even her moments of generosity seemed fake to me; to me, every time she was nice, she did it just to look nice. Barbara was every bit the vixen in this novel. I don’t even think she truly loved the king — certainly she liked him and thought he was attractive and had a great personality. However, from what I can tell from this book, Barbara was more attracted to the fact that he was king and had all this wealth and power. She also didn’t seem to care that he had other mistresses as long as she didn’t have to run into them, and she wasn’t above taking other lovers as well.

Normally such a petty character would annoy me, but I think because Barbara was the first person narrator, it was tolerable. She explained her rationale and reasoning for why she did certain things, so that it made some sort of sense, rather than leaving the reader to conclude that she’s being a bitch “just because she can”. No, I didn’t agree with everything she did, sometimes it was downright childish. For example, there was a scene where she decided to basically brag to Charles’ queen how Charles always visits her in the night and they have all these lovely children, while the queen hasn’t been able to give Charles a single baby. I remember thinking, “Oh come on … she’s the queen and Charles’ wife! Stop being so immature!” (Though I do have to admit, one could argue that the queen is the “other woman” since Charles and Barbara met and hooked up way before he even married his queen).

Even though Barbara is not a very nice character in this book and all that, I was still engrossed in the story. Partly, this has to do with the fact that I haven’t read very many (if any … can’t remember) books having to do with the Stuarts of Britain, so all these stories regarding this part of British royalty history is new to me. With a character like Barbara, you can surely expect lots of court drama. I never felt a dull moment in this book! So yes, I did actually enjoy reading this book a lot, even if I wasn’t particularly crazy about Barbara, heh. The strange thing is, this book made me feel incredible pity for Charles’ queen, Catherine, even though she was mostly a peripheral character, and now I want to read more about her!

My Rating:

Posted:
Feb 19, 2013
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Categories:
Historical Fiction

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Mistress of the Sun

Author: Sandra Gulland
First Published: June 2008
Publisher: Harper Perennial
480 pages (paperback)

For my next historical novel, I decided to read one on France, since I seem to be stuck in the England/Tudors era a lot. I am trying to branch out a bit more, but it’s a little hard when the his-fic royalty sections in stores are usually just full of Tudors novels. I want to learn more about famous French royalty, and this book has to do with one of the most famous French kings, King Louis XIV, also known as the Sun King. Well, to be more precise, it is about one of his most famous mistresses, Louise de la Vallière. My knowledge of French royalty is extremely small, and thus, I had no idea what to expect going into this novel.

In Mistress of the Sun, we start off with a very young Louise, only four or five years old, and we follow her throughout her life in court. She is the daughter of a knight, just barely passing for nobility. She is an obedient daughter, spirited and cheerful. However, when her father mysteriously dies and the horse Louise was training, Diablo, disappears, her life takes another course. Lousie’s mother marries a marquis, elevating the family status a bit, and Louise is able to become a waiting maid for Princess Marguerite, one of King Louis’ cousins. When Marguerite herself is married off, Louise finds herself employed by Princess Henriette, King Louis’ sister-in-law.

Rumors spread that King Louis and his sister-in-law are a lot more intimate than they should be. Louise, being chaste and humble, tries not to pay too much attention to such things, until she learns that the King and Henriette have devised a plan where King Louis will pretend he is fancying Louise. That way, he can see Henriette all the time but everyone will think he is just wanting to see her waiting maid. This upsets Louise greatly, to be used this way. After an unexpected confrontation, Louise discovers that the king really does have his eye on her, and that he is simply best of friends with Henriette, but the older generation just doesn’t understand that men and woman can be nothing more than friends (that’s his explanation, anyway; Louise eats it up).

And so begins a lengthy relationship between Louise and King Louis, the both of them so in love with one another. Louise knows what she is doing is wrong, but she cannot help herself. She has fallen in love with a king, though she wishes the two of them were only ordinary people; Louise has no interest in kingly favors or wealth or power. She simply wants to be with the king. But as it was in those times, mistresses of kings do not last forever, and Louise finds herself betrayed and hurt in the end.

This novel was amazing! I loved it from beginning to end. I think what really got me was Louise’s character. Usually the mistresses of kings are stereotyped as “that other woman”, the “harlot”, the “whore”, etc. It’s usually someone with seductive charm and has some skills in manipulation and whatnot. In my own experience, even if the mistress is the main character of the novel, she could still be characterized this way. Louise, however, is the opposite. She’s not exactly naive, believes in true love and she truly loves King Louis. One of the quotes I remember is her saying that she loves Louis, but she does not love the king. The fact that Louise is in this relationship with Louis purely out of love is so heartbreaking when you consider the social ramifications of that time period. She has to sacrifice a lot for him, including her morals which she held so dearly but for him, had to acknowledge that she was a fallen woman.

From this novel, I feel that Louis, too, was deeply in love with Louise. And when he was with her for the first four or five years or so, he was quite loyal to her (excepting when he had to perform his duty with his queen). He was really generous to her too, making her a duchess in her own right and things like that. When he moved on from Louise, I felt that was tragic because she is/was probably the only person who loved him for him, and not because he was this powerful king. It was sad that he did not recognize that.

I also really liked the fictional subplot with Louise and her horse Diablo. I liked it because it was an interesting way to show Louise’s demon in her heart, so to speak; her sins. Another reason I liked it is because this is historical fiction after all, and I enjoy little creative liberties like this; these literature devices that can really enhance a story.

This was a wonderful book that I heartily recommend!

My Rating: