A Rain of Thorns

Finished June 7

A Rain of Thorns by Jennifer Grayson

This novella is the first of a series of books called The Heart of the Savage. Mattie is a young woman whose mother died when she was an infant. Her father brought her up to be the son he didn't have, and she did ranch work and went on cattle drives. As the book begins, her father and her along with three men, Pete Winslow, a teen similar in age to her; Henry Finch, an man older than her father; and Charlie Rose, a quiet man returned from war. Their first night they are ambushed by cattle rustlers led by a man called Clay. The rustlers dealt with the men in a variety of ways and took Mattie with them. Clay intends to have his way with her, but Mattie won't go easily. 

Shortly after, a group of Texas Rangers come in and ensure Clay is dealt with. Mattie's father is thankful to their leader Franklin Cole, but Mattie doesn't like him, or respect him. When she finds herself married to him, she puts up with it, but over time, she finds herself thinking about leaving. 

The story doesn't wrap things up, but leads to the next novella in the series. 

Mattie is capable and observant, and knows her own mind. She doesn't like dishonesty whatever the reason, and I would find it interesting to follow her life. 

Soundings

Finished April 13

Soundings: The Story of the Remarkable Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor by Hali Felt

This biography of Marie Tharp, geologist and gifted draftsperson, follows her entire life but really focuses on her work bringing the ocean floor to life with the maps she made. She was a scientist with the academic degrees to show for it, but she was also a woman in a time where women scientists weren't respected in the same way as men scientists. After working for a few years she found her way to position at the relatively new geophysical lab at Columbia University, where she interpreted the soundings, or sonar pings, that were brought back from oceangoing expeditions. 

Marie combined art and science to create maps of the ocean floor, beginning with the North Atlantic. These maps were crucial to proving the then-controversial theory of continental drift. Her maps showed a landscape of mountain ranges, ridges, rifts, and valleys that also showed the history of our planet. Her partner in this work was Bruce Heezen, another scientist who spent much of his professional life on these oceangoing expeditions collecting the soundings. 

This book covers the entirety of her professional work, through internal department fighting, through the change to her and her team working at her own home, and the aftermath of that.

It also gives glimpses into her personal life, her relationships with her father, her brother, and with Bruce, her life partner as well as professional partner. But the personal side is only glimpsed at. I didn't get a good sense of the woman herself, perhaps because the author never met her in person and worked from what she could find as her friends and co-workers cleared out her home and what she found in archives.

This book has been sitting on my shelf for more than ten years, a birthday gift from years ago that I'd read a review for and that intrigued me. As a child I was fascinated by the National Geographic mpas of the ocean floor and I still own some. Knowing that she was behind their creation added to how I feel about them. An interesting read. 

A Short Walk Through a Wide World

Finished July 9

A Short Walk Through a Wide World by Douglas Westerbeke

This fantasy adventure book follows French native Aubry Tourvel, as she is forced to leave her home in Paris at the age of nine and keep moving. At nine she finds a puzzle ball that seems attracted to her after a neighbour passes away. She and her older sisters make a wish at an unusual well they find near them, but she can't bear to give up the ball. Soon after, she begins to bleed and convulse. Her parents take her to the doctor, but her symptoms disappear on the way there, only to reappear as she nears home again. She flees, and her family follows at first, but soon her father and sisters return home, and her and her mother keep moving. The strange malady will only let her rest a few days in one place before reappearing. 

When Aubry realizes that her situation has put a strain on family finances, she determines to go alone and leaves her mother in the night, gradually learning skills to survive. 

When we first meet her she is in her forties and in a village in Siam when her malady hits. An New Zealand family travelling by riverboat rescue her and she tells her story to them, and so also to the reader. We also see her thoughts as she chooses what to leave out along the way, the things that are truly difficult or shocking, but we see how she makes her way and also the secret doors that appear when she most needs them. 

Aubry has travelled through deserts, across mountains, and around the world more than once. When she finds herself up against severe weather, or other dire circumstances, a door will be there, in the middle of nowhere, a door that she can open and find herself in a vast underground library. She is always drawn in by the books there, books that are told in pictures, stories from every time and place, about every subject. These stories add to her knowledge and help her understand the world she must navigate through. It is a life that is lonely at times, but one that also opens her to new friendships, new languages, and new experiences. 

This is a story of adventure, of courage and resilience, of risks and rewards, unexpected friendships, and even love along the way. 

I found this book thoroughly engaging and hard to put down. This is a debut novel that is a definite winner. 

The Guest

Finished April 2

The Guest by Emma Cline

I grabbed this book from the library to fill a challenge. I would say that it's a book that made me feel kind of like I was watching a train wreck in slow motion.

The main character Alex is very unlikeable. She behaves very much like a narcissist, and tries to manage the relationships, but doesn't necessarily put a lot of work into it. She moved to New York City as a young woman and lives with roommates. She has been in the city for a while as the book opens, and it appears that she worked as an escort, but never made a lot of money at it, and now is finding it more difficult to draw the men that she wants to. She has also missed rent payments and her roommates have kicked her out. 

After an encounter at a bar, she has decided to go in a different direction, beginning a relationship with an older man with the expectation that it will be long term. He doesn't pay her, but he does buy her things like clothing and accessories. She has traveled with him to his vacation home on Long Island, and accompanied him to various dinners and parties. When she makes a misstep at one of the parties, she finds him distancing himself from her and the sending her back to the city. His assistant buys her a train ticket and leaves her at the station. 

But Alex has another issue. She has got on the bad side of a man who doesn't suffer fools, and he is looking for her to return something she's taken from him. We do eventually find out what that it, but he has been calling her and trying to get her to meet him, so she is wary of taking a chance and going back to the city.

As she maneuvers herself into various living situations through meeting people and pretending she knows them, she has a plan to go back to the man who has sent her away, timing it for a party he has planned for Labour Day. 

Alex is desperate, but also very manipulative. She looks for opportunities to ingratiate herself into others' lives for her own benefit. She can be charming, but also cold and uncaring. I found myself wondering what crazy thing she would do next. 

An interesting and unique look at a life situation beyond anything I could imagine. 

Unholy Dying

Finished October 6

Unholy Dying by Robert Barnard

This is the seventh novel in a series featuring an English police officer, Charlie Peace, but the first that I've read. There are several characters whose viewpoint we can see things from. One is a journalist, Cosmo Horrocks. Horrocks is a journalist with an eye out for a story wherever he goes, who uses any situation for gain, and has no respect for anyone else. It is the last characteristic that has been limiting in his career, and we can see that no one around him likes him, not his coworkers or his family. He is married, with two daughters. On a train he overhears a conversation between two men, Con and Derek, that piques his interest, about an investigation into the actions of a priest regarding one of his parishioners, a young single mother. 

Another is Julie Norris, the mother in question. She was pregnant at sixteen, kicked out of the house by her parents, and soon after living in a small home on a council estate in Shipley. She aims to be a good mother to both her toddler and the second child she is expecting. She found the priest, Father Pardoe, a good listener and a good adviser. He had been able to help her get some basic items for her home, such as used furniture and appliances. 

We also see Father Pardoe. He has been sent away, boarding with a middle-aged woman in a nearby town, awaiting the investigation, but is growing impatient as the bishop hasn't answered any of his inquiries about the status. 

We also see Mrs. Knowsley, the woman Pardoe is boarding with, and she provides an ear for him, and a source of unexpected comfort. 

Another set of voices are several female parishioners of Father Pardoe, including Miss Preece-Dembleby; Mary, the wife of Con; and Janette, the wife of Derek. These women are also wondering about the inquiry, and want to provide support for the priest, who they believe is innocent of the things he has been accused of. 

I really enjoyed how the story unfolded, moving through different characters multiple times, so that I could see the nuances of the situation and the lives affected. 

There are a couple of themes present as well. One is the role of the Catholic Church both in the lives of these people, and in its secrets. Another is the role of women, in society and in domestic life. Some women have breakthroughs in their lives, while others continue in their expected roles. 

A very interesting read that has me interested in others in the series. 

Enough

Finished September 16

Enough by Kimia Eslah

This novel looks at three Iranian-Canadian women from different generations and shows us how they experience workplace racism and sexism, giving particularly emphasis to microaggressions. 

Sameera Jahani is a millennial and has just been hired as the manager of the Web and Digital Communications team at the City of Toronto. She lives with her partner Shannon in the queer village neighbourhood. 

Faiza Hosseini is the director of Program Support at the city, a position she's reached over many years at the city. She lives with her husband Robert, an executive who works less onerous hours, her mother Bibi, and her daughters Mina, sixteen, and Pari, seven. Mina is her daughter with Ali, her first husband, the one she emigrated from Iran with. 

Goldie Sheer has just been hired for her first job since graduating university, a three-month contract as a database administrator with the city. She lives at home with her parents, her younger brother Hussain, and her older brother Dariush. Dariush has recently moved back home after a relationship breakup and has had trouble adjusting to life in Canada, while the two younger children were born in Canada.

The three work in different departments, but their paths cross, and they come together over similar social issues. 

Faiza reports to the city manager, Howard Crawley, a man who seems much more forward-thinking than he is, partly because he has the tendency to farm his work out to those willing to do it as part of advancing their careers. Faiza is the latest one to do this, and she has been working as his assistant in all but name recently. She has just finished putting together a presentation on EDI initiatives, and applies formally for a recently posted position as Howard's assistant. 

Faiza has a great management style, focused on teamwork and respect, and she has built allies across departments. One of these is Voula Stavros, the director of Customer Service, who plays a key role in the novel. Bibi has a different expectation of what being a mother means than Faiza does, and this brings in a fourth generation in social expectations. 

Goldie is bright and looks for opportunities, and this both helps and hinders her in her new position. We also see her with her best friend Issa, who is black and experiences more blatant racism than Goldie does. 

Sameera is shown both in situations where she speaks up and situations where she doesn't, and this is something that she must think about in terms of her future. 

Throughout the novel, Farsi dialogue is mixed into the conversations and shown in italics, with English following where necessary for understanding. This is done in such a natural and seamless way and I really found this so helpful in giving a sense of culture, and showing how similar we are. 

I really enjoyed this book and also found it touched on issues that need to be discussed. This would be a really interesting choice for a book club. 

The Radcliffe Ladies' Reading Club

Finished September 7

The Radcliffe Ladies' Reading Club by Julia Bryan Thomas

This novel, set during the mid-1950s, revolves around a group of four girls, all freshman at Radcliffe, and a female bookstore owner who decides to start a reading club at her store. Alice Campbell left her home town of Chicago and opened a bookshop in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This store had been a dream of hers that she was only able to realize at this point in her life, with her backstory gradually coming out through the course of the novel. 

The four young women we come to know as well, both through the book club and through their activities at college. Tess comes from Ohio and is a serious student. She grew up with several brothers, a subdued mother, and a bully of a father. She comes to Radcliffe as a scholarship student, is an English major, and aims to excel in her studies and escape the life she grew up in. It is Tess who sees the flyer for the reading club at the bookstore and suggests it to her roommate and other friends she has made. 

Her roommate Caroline is quite different. Caroline comes from a wealthy family in Newport, Rhode Island, and is a beautiful young woman who uses her charm to keep young men clamoring for her time. On arrival Caroline takes over the room, but in a nice way. She provides a matching set of bedlinen to Tess, saying she likes things to match, and Tess falls for her charm. Caroline is studying art history and her travels have given her direct experience with art.

Evie grew up on a farm in upstate New York, and is studying economics

Evie's roommate Merritt is from San Francisco and is studying art. Merritt is an only child and her mother passed away when Merritt was still a young girl. 

The reading club starts with the classic Jane Eyre and over the course of the year, one can see how the books mirror certain aspects of the young women's lives. The discussions around each book are very interesting. Alice is good at asking questions that get the others talking, and one of the first things she says is that there is no right or wrong when discussing a book, but instead the club is about how the book affects you and how it makes you feel. She manages the discussions well, and while she doesn't become friends with the others, she does manage to gain the trust of some of them.

This was quite an interesting read, and I was interested in what happened to the characters and how their experiences changed them. I also found it interesting to think about the books chosen and about how I might respond to some of the questions Alice asked. 

The Story of V

Finished July 23

The Story of V: Opening Pandora's Box by Catherine Blackledge

This is an in-depth look into female sexual organs, sexuality, reproduction, and sexual pleasure. The author has a PhD in science, and worked in science and medical journalism. As one would guess from the title of this book, the central subject of the book is the vagina, but it goes beyond that.

She describes how female genitals have been studied over history and talks about how knowledge has ebbed and flowed. Some things were discovered, denied, and then discovered anew. Sometimes these complex organs were simplified or misrepresented. 

She also references female sexuality across numerous species, including insects, birds, and mammals, and talks about how, in many cases, it is the female that controls the sexual encounter and whether fertilization occurs. 

She also talks about how our sexuality goes beyond our genitals involving other areas of our body, and how scent is a big influence on our sexual pleasure. One thing I found interesting in the connection between the nose and sexual arousal was that, for many people, nasal stuffiness or congestion can occur in conjunction with sexual stimulation or orgasm. 

She talks about the structure of the different parts of our genitals, and when we learned about different aspects of them, linking research to knowledge and where we still have things to learn. 

This is an important book, particularly for women, to better understand their own bodies and responses. I read it slowly over many months, taking time to absorb the different learnings throughout. 

Women Talking

Finished April 30

Women Talking by Miriam Toews

This book was inspired by a real life event that occured at a Mennonite colony in Bolivia named the Manitoba Colony. While eight men were convicted and jailed there, the assaults continued. Toews wrote this book as a reaction to those events. 

The book begins after the discovery that some men in this fictional Mennonite colony of Molotschna were using veterinary anaesthetic on women and girls in the the night and sexually assaulting them. Some of them are now pregnant. 

Most of the men in the community have gone to the city to try to bail out the men accused of the crimes. While they are gone, eight of the women and girls have decided to meet to talk about what they should do. August, a man who has returned to the community as an adult after his parents were ejected from the community when he was a child, has been asked to take minutes of the meeting. This is something that is gradually explained during the novel. 

The book is told through those minutes and through other observations by August that he has noted. 

The novel is slow-paced, almost all of it taking place in the loft of the barn where the women are meeting. The time period is only a couple of days and there is sometimes circular discussion, occasional moments of humour, and disagreements that make the time seem to stretch longer. The character with the most depth is August himself because he is the narrator. We see his sadness, his sense of loss, and his feelings of not belonging anywhere. The personalities of the various women and girls also comes out through their talk and small actions. 

This is a moving novel that gives the reader a lot to think about. It has since also been adapted into a film. 

The Women with Silver Wings

Finished December 27

The Women with Silver Wings: The Inspiring True Story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II by Katherine Sharp Landdeck

This book drew my interest after reading about these women in both history books and fiction. (For fiction, The All Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg, for nonfiction Our Mothers' War by Emily Yellin.)

There were many women looking to do their part during the war, and pilots were a small but vocal group. This book outlines how two women pilots led the charge, but didn't always agree about how to go about it, or about what the end result should be. Those two women were Nancy Love and Jacqueline Cochran, and at first they led to different endeavours for the female pilots. Nancy Love started with a handful of women who served as ferry pilots, moving planes around the country as needed, to free up male pilots for frontline work. Her pilots had significant experience and were based with Air Transport Command in Wilmington, Delaware. 

Jacqueline Cochran was already flying in a similar capacity in Britain, leading a group of American women pilots flying for the ATA there. (A great fiction book about the female Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) pilots is The Beauty Chorus by Kate Lord Brown). When she heard about the women led by Nancy Love, she returned to the U.S. as fast as she could and argued that she was promised a lead role in women pilots flying for the war effort. She was then put in charge of recruiting other women pilots with less experience and getting them trained. She started on this immediately, and started at a Houston, Texas base, later moving to Sweetwater, Texas. 

This book looks at a number of women that were pilots, as well as the two leaders, and we see their different stories, and follow them through training and some of their more memorable flights. 

We also see the decades long fight for them to get the same recognition and status as the men that did the same jobs. 

A well-researched book that highlights a notable group of women pioneers in their field. 

New Beginnings at Rose Cottage

Finished November 10

New Beginnings at Rose Cottage by Erin Green

This novel has three women, from three different generations, who book into a shared vacation cottage on the coast of Devon. They all have something they are escaping or looking for. The advertisement for the cottage had promised friendships and home comforts, and although the women are wary at first at the possibility of making friends with women of a different age group, they find themselves growing close in surprising ways. 

Emma has recently lost her job after the restaurant she worked at for years closed and the building sold to a new restaurant owner. She has decided to use her redundancy funds to start her own food business. She isn't sure what that will look like yet, so she is taking the time to weigh her options as well as think about her personal life. When an unexpected opportunity arises, she finds herself moving faster than planned, and faster than her new friends think she should. 

Ruth is taking a much needed break from her life. She had dreams when she was young of a creative life, but an unplanned pregnancy and subsequent single motherhood made her rely on her mother, and thus abide by her mother's decisions around her life, and has had a long career as a bank clerk. More recently, she's also been the caregiver for her mother as the older woman has begun a cognitive decline. When she is drawn to a local art shop and begins painting, she finds herself experiencing new feelings. 

Benni works through a temp agency, and tries to maintain a positive attitude despite the addictive behaviour of her mother and brother, whom she lives with. As she learns to listen to her body rather be shamed by it, she tries new activities and begins to gain confidence in areas that she never believed she would. She also learns something unexpected about her own family.

All of these women have interesting stories, and the vacation doesn't provide instant solutions, but it does open their eyes to different opportunities and create new contacts that also open doors they hadn't known about. 

An enjoyable read. 

For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain

Finished August 18

For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain by Victoria MacKenzie

This short novel is about two real women, Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe. Both women were from well-to-do families in England and stories of and by them have survived beyond their lives, which ended in the 1400s. 

Julian was a name that was taken on by her once she became an anchoress, a woman who was sealed into a small room against one wall of a church. Her room had a window into the church, a window into a small room used by her maid who brought her food and other things she required, and took away waste products, and a high window to the outdoors. She lived in a time of hardship and disease and lived through more than one outbreak of plague. The first took all of her family except her and her mother and unmoored both of them for a while. She was able to get permission to learn how to read and write and eventually married and had a child. Sadly, the second plague took both her husband and child, and she moved back into her mother's home. During an illness of her own, she had what she called 'shewings,' where Jesus appeared to her and told her things and brought her comfort. This reinforced her natural interest in religion and led her to her choice to become an anchoress after her mother's death.  She had considered becoming a pilgrim or hermit, but was dissuaded by others due to her gender. As far as we know she never told anyone of the visions she'd had, but she did write of them and her papers were found years later.

Margery was married to a man she didn't love and had many children, but also great trouble during childbirth. During an illness after her first child was born, she had visions of Jesus and continued having similar visions during her life. She tried to communicate what she learned of these publicly by telling of her visions and weeping about what she had learned, but was criticized by many for this and was asked many questions by religious men trying to convict her of being a heretic. She sought counsel many places, including from Julian of Norwich, and travelled to Jerusalem later in her life. She couldn't read or write, but had a scribe write her story. 

This book is in three parts. The first is the longest and alternates the women's stories using their own voices as they tell us of their experiences and their search for meaning. The second part tells of their meeting, which they did on two subsequent days. The last part is the shortest and tells of Margery's careful keeping of Julian's story and how she planned to write her own.

There is also an epilogue that explains the facts about the women, how Margery's story came to be written down, and was the autobiography written in English; how both women's stories came to light, and the importance of these in terms of medieval literature. 

It is interesting how Mackenzie has combined these two lives, showing their differences and parallels and giving their voices life. 

Poison

Finished July 27

Poison by Kathryn Harrison

This historical novel of the late 1600s follows two women, born on the same day, one a real figure and one not. Francesca de Luarca is the daughter of a Spanish silk grower. Her father's family has been in the business for years, and owns their own fields. Her grandfather held to tradition and what has worked in the past, but her father Felix has other ideas. He has heard about new mulberry trees that offer better yields, and wants to try them, but is thwarted by Francesca's grandfather. After the grandfather's death, Felix makes the changes he has dreamed of, but the results are not as he hoped. And so Francesca's mother, Conception takes on work as a wet nurse, eventually in the king's household.

Maria Luisa, first wife of King Carlos (Charles II) was born a French princess, niece to the Sun King, Marie Louise D'Orleans. She married the King on the way to the capital, shortly after crossing into Spain, in Quintanapalla. It is here that the two women first cross paths, as Francesca is in the crowd of people observing the couple as they emerge from the church. 

This is also the time of the Inquisition where there is much suspicion arising from any unusual events or behaviour outside of the norm. So when Francesca becomes involved with a priest, and is eventually discovered, she finds herself marked as a witch. 

Marie Louise's inability to conceive also arouses suspicion and when she is discovered in deception, things deteriorate for her as well. 

This is a story of women and their strong ties to their mothers, how love and fate determine their lives, and how society's reaction to their actions bring about their downfall. 

The stories of the two women only touch slightly, but Francesca's story winds around that of the Queen, and the narrative moves fluidly between them and across their lives to show the commonalities. 

Girl, Forgotten

Finished July 5

Girl, Forgotten by Karin Slaughter

The beginning of this book has a day from the early 1980s, where a young woman, Emily Vaughn, is planning to go to her high school prom. She hasn't been to high school in months, and no one wants her there. The reason for that is her pregnancy. Here we see Emily encounter several young men, classmates as well as a teacher, and defy her parents' wishes to head to the school. She gets there, but never gets back home. 

This novel follows U.S. Marshall Andrea Oliver from her graduation day as a marshall through her first assignment. Andrea grew up in the witness protection program, although she wasn't aware of that until recently. Her biological father is a man who is in jail partly due to her mother's testimony. He was also one of the men suspected in Emily Vaughn death. 

When, on her graduation day, Andrea is offered the job of protecting a judge in Delaware who has been receiving death threats, she finds that the judge Esther Vaughn is Emily's mother, and there is a hidden agenda to her posting. Someone wants her to find Emily's killer, and they think it is Andrea's father. 

As Andrea gets her bearings in the small town, getting to know her partner, an experienced marshall with a quirky sense of humour names, Leonard (Catfish) Bible, as well as the locals, she finds there is more going on than she expected. 

As she learns how Bible thinks, she also learns that many people from Emily's life have secrets, and most of them are still in town. 

This is a book that has a lot going on, and some of the plotlines are eye-opening. Andrea has training, but she is learning her job as she goes, and sometimes, she makes a mistake. A book that will keep you guessing until the end. 

Good Night, Irene

Finished June 17

Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea

This novel focuses on a little known group of women who worked for the Red Cross attached to the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II. They were set up in teams of three to man Clubmobiles that supported the troops for morale. The large buses were similar to today's food trucks. They served coffee, tea, and donuts, and were equipped with record players and a speaker system to broadcast the music to those waiting for service. These mobile units travelled to airbases, troop stations, and to troops near the front. 

In particular, it focuses on Irene Woodward, a young woman from a well-to-do family in New York City. She is fleeing an abusive relationship, and hopes to do her part for the troops. She goes to Washington, D.C. for training along with a number of other young women, and they get trained to drive the truck they will be operating, and to make donuts and coffee. During training she made friends with Dorothy Dunford, a young woman from the Midwest who has sold her family farm after the death of her parents and the loss of her brother in the war. She is a take-no-nonsense woman with driving skills and gumption. The third girl in the bus is Ellie, a woman from Chicago. 

After training, the women travel by ship in a convoy to England, where they use a British truck until their new wheels are ready. Besides serving at their mobile unit, they go to various troop stations and officers' clubs to do similar work. 

Soon after D-Day, the women take their bus over to France, where they move east along with the troops, finding themselves in some tricky situations and experiencing war firsthand. Although not looking for love, Irene finds herself drawn to a fighter pilot named Hans who pursues her in a way that gains her trust. As Irene finds friendship and love, she also experiences the worst trauma of her life, witnessing situations she never imagined. 

This novel has real emotion and the characters feel very real. There is humour and grief, love and loss, and I was intrigued to see that Urrea found the inspiration for this book in his own mother's experiences as a Red Cross Clubmobile worker. 

An amazing read. 

Patricia Wants to Cuddle

Finished May 24

Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen

This totally captivating novel is set on one of the San Juan islands in Washington state. A reality television show called The Catch, similar to The Bachelor, is planning to film their penultimate episode on the island. Otter Island is a smaller island, with a mountain at its heart. With a lot of forest, hiking trails, and sheep farmers, we also learn that the island has had some tragedies in the past where people disappeared. The island also has a reputation for being a refuge for lesbians.

The last four women in the running on The Catch are a mixed group: a black human resources professional, a car show model, a Christian influencer, and a fashion vlogger. 

The story moves between these four, the show's producer, Casey, a chat group dedicated to the show and blog posts from the past. The cover gives us a hint to part of the plot that doesn't get brought out into the open until much later in the novel. 

The women's voices show their inner thoughts, and we see how they differ, or not, from their outer personas. As they travel to the island, we get a glimpse into their motivations, what brought them to this point in their lives and what they hope for. We also see how they interact with each other and the man at the center of this season's story, Jeremy, a sleazy tech entrepreneur. 

On the island, we see little of the natives except the woman who owns the B&B where the four women contestants are staying.  

There is a sly humour underlying the whole story, from the reality television premise, to the island and its secrets. 

This was a fast read, that kept me totally engaged with the story. 

The War Librarian

Finished April 17

The War Librarian by Addison Armstrong

This historical fiction novel has two timelines. One is in France towards the end of World War I in the fall of 1918, and the other is in the United States in 1976.

In 1918, Emmaline Balakin was working at the Dead Letter Office in Washington, D.C. and came across a letter that was from someone she used to know. The letter had been sent back unopened by its addressee and Emmaline had opened it to determine who it should be returned to. She ended up doing the unthinkable and answering the letter, but it also inspired her to enter the field of war librarianship, and she ended up being sent to France to look after one of the small embedded libraries at a war hospital. 

In 1976 Kathleen Carre has been accepted as one of the first women to enter the United States Naval Academy. She has dreamed of this and trained physically for it. Kathleen was brought up by her grandmother, who served as a driver in World War I, and who has cautioned her about how the military may not meet all her expectations.

As we follow both women, we see how the reality of their situations is different from what they expected. Emmaline discovers the horrors of war, as the hospital she is at specializes in facial damage and gas victims. She also discovers the realities of racism as she sees the black soldiers treated differently than the white ones, with less access to amenities and less care for their health issues. When she finds that the War Department and the ALA who have co-sponsored the libraries have also censored some materials, she is determined to speak up about the wrongs she sees.

Kathleen finds that there are some men in her class, as well as men higher up in the hierarchy who aren't happy about women being at the academy and take every chance to make their lives miserable. She also discovers that the black members of her class, whether male or female, are also prejudiced against. Without her closest confidante, her grandmother, she must try to determine who she can trust, and who she can't as she realizes that she can't face up to the challenges by herself. 

As we gradually learn of the threads connecting these two women, it was interesting to see how the same issues came up in both time periods, as they still do today. 

I read this book quickly, not wanting to put it down, and I needed to see what happened to the women involved in this story, as well as the men who touched their lives. It was both inspiring and depressing as I saw how little progress has been made on relevant issues over the years. 

Ribbons of Scarlet

Finished April 14

Ribbons of Scarlet: A Novel of the French Revolution's Women by Kate Quinn, Stephanie Dray, Laura Kamoie, Sophie Perinot, Heather Webb, and E. Knight, with a foreword by Allison Pataki

This historical fiction novel is written in first person around several real women who had public roles in the French Revolution. In the afterword, the authors talk about where they took liberties with the facts to either make the plot work better, minimize the number of character the reader was introduced to, or to link certain characters together. 

Most books about the French Revolution cover the time period with a focus on the males who were at the center of the action, and seldom touch on the women who were actively involved. The idea of focusing on the women was intriguing to me. 

The book is written chronologically from the spring of 1786 to the spring of 1794. There is also an epilogue that is set ten years later. Each section focuses on one or two women, from the Princess Elizabeth, sister to King Louis XVI, to Louise Audu, a vegetable seller known as Queen of the Market Women, to Manon Roland, who wrote her husband's speeches. The women are from many walks of life, and encompass many experiences of the war from its beginning philosophy through its riots and executions to its unsatisfactory end. The choice of women is good, giving us a variety of points of view and showing us firsthand different aspects of the war. 

One issue that I had with the book was that although each section focused on one or two women, because it was chronologically we didn't get the full story of that character in their section, so there were times I felt left hanging while we switched to a different voice. I'm not sure how this could have been avoided though given the structure. 

I learned more about this period in history, and about these women and some of the men they interacted with. Definitely an enlightening read. 

The Swift and the Harrier

Finished March 10

The Swift and the Harrier by Minette Walters

I've always enjoyed Walters psychological thrillers, and I'm glad to say I enjoy her historical fiction as well. This novel is set in the 1640s in Dorsetshire and covers the period of 1642-1649 from just before the English Civil War until the beheading of King Charles I. 

The main character is the Jayne Swift, the daughter of a upper class titled family who has taken the unusual choice of training privately as a physician. While Jayne's father Sir Henry Swift is a Royalist, she has taken a neutral position where she is against the war in general and offers her services to whomever needs them. 

As the book begins, Jayne is making her way to the home of her cousin Ruth Morecott in Dorchester on a day where there is a public hanging of two Catholic priests who didn't leave England before the edict requiring them to. Buffeted by the crowds, Jayne is taken in by an older widow, Lady Alice Stickland and then escorted by Lady Alice's footman, William Harrier, to Ruth's home where she has been called to minister to the toddler son of Ruth. 

Jayne is a taller than average woman in her late twenties who has not yet married, and who is forthright in her aim to provide care to all who need it, regardless of their ability to pay her. She is particularly protective of women and children, and she is soon called on to do that in her visit to Ruth.

Walters really sets the scenes here, including two maps near the front of the book that help to visualize the setting. The scenes of the homes, the streets, and the hanging are all brought to life by the detail that Walters is so good at. 

As Jayne moves from Dorchester to her family's home at Swyre, back to Dorchester, and later on to Lyme Regis, we get a sense of the landscape both geographically and politically. She gets caught up in the war through her treatment of those injured on both sides, and finds herself having to be cautious about her own movements in order to stay safe. Through her services, she witnesses the fighting firsthand and is both horrified by the violence, and inspired by the dedication of those involved in the fighting, particularly the citizens of Lyme Regis, and the servant class who have little say in the decisions that so profoundly affect them.

When she encounters William again in the guise of a soldier, she finds that he is not all that he seems and has his own burdens that he is contending with as he fights to restore his family honour and the country that he loves. 

This is a war tale and a love story, a character novel of two very unusual people, and a snapshot of history at a particular time and place. 

At the beginning of the novel Walter defines the surnames of the title characters, as the two birds they are named for: the swift, a fast medium sized bird that can outdistance most winged predators; and the harrier, a large keen-eyed hawk which hunts by gliding low and silently over open ground. These definitions lend themselves to their namesakes well.

I really enjoyed learning more of this time period, a bit of English history less well-known to me, and seeing the characters develop over these years through their experiences. Secondary characters such as Jayne's family and the doctor who trained her are also brought to life, and we get a good picture of life for these people. 

Very enjoyable read. 

A World of Curiosities

Finished February 14

A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny

I read this just after her previous one, and while good it wasn't as good in my view. This book is more violent and more personal in a different sense. It opens with a graduation, one that is a happy occasion for most, but also has elements of past violence. The graduation is at the cole Polytechnic in Montreal, at which there is a tribute to the women killed in 1989. One of the students graduating did not actually attend the school, but took the courses from her prison cell. Her story takes readers back to the first meeting between Gamache and Jean-Guy Bouvier, a meeting that took place during a murder investigation in a small northern Quebec town. Another student receiving special honours has a connection with Three Pines, as she is Myrna's niece. 

It also takes Gamache back into another criminal connection from his past, a serial killer that he encountered with a remarkable ability to get into people's heads and manipulate them. 

In Three Pines, there are also changes. After many years without a leader for their small church they have one, one who came to religion later in life after a Wall Street career, and who seems to know loss. Myrna is thinking of moving, needing a home with more space to accommodate her niece. So when the rumour of a secret room in Myrna's loft begins, it seems like it may offer an answer.

Instead, the room offers more questions. Questions about what is hidden there and about who hid it and why. These questions also reach back into the past and into Quebec's early history, but also into the art world and a painting known as The Paston Treasure, a painting that was done by an unknown painter, seemingly to show off a collection of odd items connected in the family's travels. 

As always, Penny draws on real stories and adds in her own fictional elements to create a story that captures the imagination. She encompasses bigger issues such as the damage done to child victims of crimes, and how people react when faced with their biggest fears. 

The stakes are high in this tale, and so is the tension, and we see more of what have been minor characters until now, like Billy Williams, as well as a reappearance by Amelia Choquet.