Every Time We Say Goodbye

Finished June 18

Every Time We Say Goodbye by Natalie Jenner

This is the third book in the series The Jane Austen Society. It is set mostly in 1954-1955 with flashbacks to a related storyline in 1943. The main character is Vivien Lowry, a British playwrights. She's recently premiered her second play on the London stage, but it wasn't well received by critics. Her contacts, which include several well-known women including Peggy Guggenheim, Daphne du Maurier, and Ava Gardner, arrange a job in Italy for her, working on the script of an American director. Many of those working on the film have left the United States due to the McCarthy investigations, including her fellow writer American Jew Levi Bassano, a young man who served with a Field Photo unit in the U.S. armed forces during World War II. The lead actress in the film is American Claudia Jones, a beautiful biracial woman who passes for white. As she engages with the film community in Rome, we see other real people enter the story, including a young Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, and Gina's husband Milko Skofic. Vivien becomes friends with Claudia, who recently starred in a film as a nun and who is making some life decisions of her own. We also see the strong influence the Vatican had on the film industry at the time. 

Vivien is still coming to terms with the disappearance of her fiancé David, who had been captured by Italian forces during the war and then gone missing. She hopes to be able to gather more information while she is still in Italy. 

An Italian director is looking to do a film about a young woman known only as La Scholaretta, who was a partisan during the war and who was executed for the assassin of a Nazi SS Commander. He also has a personal connection to her story. In the 1943 portion of the plot, we see this young woman in the hours surrounding the assassination and her motivations and actions during this time.

I found it interesting to see how these two plots came together and how the repercussions of the war were still being felt during this time. As part of the series, this book centres women who make their own careers and decisions and who support each other doing so. 

I also enjoyed learning that the author is Canadian. 

The Other Alcott

Finished August 28

The Other Alcott by Elise Hooper

This is a tale based on May Alcott, Louisa May Alcott's youngest sister. May lived in the shadow of Louisa, and in the shadow of the character Amy from little women. The book begins just as Little Women is published and Louisa is receiving the first reviews. May did the illustrations for the book (which are included at the back of this book), and some of the reviews spoke negatively about the illustrations. Louisa tried to protect May from these, but May did take them personally. Louisa was supporting the entire family with her writing, including many years of art instruction and living expenses for May. Hooper has done a great deal of research for this novel and the main elements from May's life are here. In the afterward, she explains what characters and events she changed, but they are pretty minor. The two sisters were close, but both ambitious and passionate about their art, which made them both sometimes resentful of the time they had to take care of the family that they both loved dearly. May lived in a time where women artists struggled to get access to art instruction, let alone make a living at it, and it was only through the support of other female artists, particularly American ones, and a chance encounter with John Ruskin, that she finally took the risk to sell some of her work and begin to support herself. While Louisa was almost completely focused on her writing, May also longed for a marriage with a spouse who would support her artistic ambitions. We see her engaged in romances, but she had trouble finding someone who lived up to her dreams in this way. May studied not only in nearby Boston, but also in Rome, London, and Paris, and her work was accepted twice into the famous Paris Salon exhibition. She was in her late 30s when she finally met the love of her love, a Swiss man named Ernest Nieriker, who was much younger than she was. They married quickly and moved to Paris. She was just beginning to fulfill her dreams both professionally and personally when tragedy struck. 

I grew up reading and enjoying Louisa May Alcott's writing, and really enjoyed getting to see a bit of her personal life and that of one of her sisters. I wasn't aware of May's being an artist, and that she had known many of the other female artists of the period, including the more famous Mary Cassatt. The details of the education that was offered in art, and the struggles to succeed that women had more than men of the time was very interesting. I particularly found it interesting that one of her main sources of income through her art was doing work in the style of Turner, both copies of his pieces and ones of her own using a similar style, focused on the light and colour that he used. This article gives more information on her as an artist including some images.  As I read, I was hoping that May would take the risks and get recognized for her talent, and that she would meet a man worthy of her. This book really captured me, and gave me insight into the real people portrayed here.

 

The Blue Demon

Finished February 3
The Blue Demon by David Hewson

This is the eighth book in the Nic Costa series, and I've enjoyed all the ones I've read. Set in Rome, Nic is called in as part of a team to deal with the a murder and threats related to a G8 meeting held in the heart of the city. The team is called in by the president, exercising a right he has seldom used in defiance of the prime minister, who planned the high level meeting of leaders.
As the book begins, an Italian politician has been kidnapped and his driver murdered. The clues in the case lead back to a dissident terrorist group that was active decades earlier, but could that really be the case. As the intrigue builds, and the various police and security groups push for their own forces to take control, more and more is revealed. There is lots of conspiracy here, and greed, and arrogance. And Nic finds that he learns more about his own father and the role he played in politics when Nic was young.
As usual in Hewson's books, there is a lot going on, in politics, in art and archaeology, and in the struggle for power. The Blue Demon of the title is an ancient being from an earlier time's legends, but one very real to one man who believes he has a mission to fulfill.

Dreaming the Bull

Finished August 20
Dreaming the Bull by Manda Scott

This is the second book in a series, but I haven't read the others. It is a story around the Boudica, a woman warrior who led a long war against the Romans who were settling in Britain. She is the Bringer of Victory and her role is now taken by Breaca, a woman of strong resolve. The Boudica is part of the tribe of Eceni, and this book begins in A.D. 47. The main Roman character is a decurion, an officer in the auxiliary cavalry, named Julius Valerius. He was born an Eceni, but an incident in his youth has hardened his heart against his own people. The Romans are trying to disarm their enemy as a measure of defence, and this means destroying weapons that have been handed down through generations. As the man in charge of this action, Julius is hated by the Eceni. The Governor of Britannia is Scapula, and he is also hated by the tribes.
As the book begins, Julius meets the Roman Longinus Sdapeze, and grows close to him.
The Eceni are based on the holy island of Mona. One of the leading warriors is Caradoc, lover of Breaca, and father to the young boy Cunomar, son of Breaca. Caradoc is also the father of Cygfa, a young woman who is taking her first battle as a warrior. Her mother is Cwmfen, another strong female warrior. Breaca is heavily pregnant as the battle begins, and so is unable to join in. She sends her son Cunomar under the protection of Dubornos and her beloved hound Hail.
The Emperor Claudius is nearing the end of his reign, and is highly superstitious. When the battle goes wrong, and some of the leading warriors become prisoners of Rome, it is this superstitious nature, and the intercession of the royal physician Xenophon, that help to keep them alive.
I enjoyed this tale, and am now interested in reading other books in the series.

The Sacred Cut

Finished January 25
The Sacred Cut by David Hewson

This novel is the third book in the series featuring Detective Nic Costa. Set in Rome, just before Christmas, the city is in the middle of a snowstorm, when an alarm in the Pantheon causes police to arrive.
What they discover when they get there is a tableau they don't know how to interpret. A woman is dead, naked, placed in a certain way, and with marks cut into her skin. But who has done it, and why, and what did the person who set off the alarm see before she ran.
Before the Italians can begin the formal investigation, before Teresa Lupo can do an autopsy, the FBI is there, taking over, and the Italian intelligence seems to be wanting that to happen.
With one of their own citizens dead though, Costa and his fellow officers, not to mention Teresa, aren't so quick to let this go. They want to know what is so sensitive they are being frozen out, and why one of the American agents, Emily Deacon, doesn't seem to know either.
As Emily begins to come around to their way of thinking and their grasp of the situation begins to grow, they also begin to wonder just who the real bad guy is in this situation.
I always enjoy the rebelliousness of Nic Costa, the shrewdness of his boss, Falcone, and the other characters that surround them. This case is interesting, with elements of terrorism and conspiracy.

Foreign Audiobook

Finished October 27
The Creator's Map by Emilio Calderón, read by Tony Chiroldes
I just finished listening to this entrancing novel in the car today. It is set in Rome beginning in 1937 and taking us through the Second World War. As it begins, a group of Spaniards have banded together to wait out the Spanish Civil War. The narrator, José María has remained neutral to the war. With no family remaining, he concentrates on his new career as an architect. It is only when the beautiful young Spaniard Montse involves him in her intrigues that he becomes involved in things. The two end up spying on local Nazis and become involved in a plot to collect mystic artifacts through their relationship to a young Italian prince. The prime artifact that is sought is the title of this novel, the creator's map, supposedly drawn by God.
As José tells his story you see how his emotions embroil him and ultimately make his decisions for him.
The reader of this audiobook makes the words flow and come to life. Rome exists in the listening.

A Child's Point of View

Finished January 23
When We Were Romans by Matthew Kneale
This is the story of nine-year-old Lawrence and his family. When his mother Hannah believes her ex-husband is stalking her with ill intent, she drags Lawrence and his younger sister Jemima off to her old stomping ground of Rome from their home in London.
The entire story is told from Lawrence's point of view. Lawrence both annoys and placates young Jemima, observes his mother's old friends, and deals with his mother's changing feelings. I liked how Lawrence matched the people he met with animals that he felt suited them. He was also stuck on a book series, Hideous Histories, issues of which covered Petrifying Popes and Calamitous Caesars. He keeps giving little stories about the historic figures that he reads about and one finds that the often relate to issues around him. Lawrence also loves space and talks about the various facts he has learned about the universe.
Along for the trip is Lawrence's hamster, Herman, and he provides interesting lessons and distractions along the way. As I read, I began to realize that the problems that Lawrence and his family were fleeing didn't go away when they got to Rome, and Lawrence is just too young to be able to deal with them appropriately although he does try.
The one thing I thing I could had done without is the misspellings scattered throughout the text. I believe they are supposed to emphasize Lawrence's age, but I don't think that they added to the believability of the story, and I found them distracting.