What really struck me was I how much I agreed with her. My book club had just read Shanghai Girls, by Lisa See. Most of us felt that while the book was well written and had compelling moments, it was also unrelenting in its misery. (We’re all fans of Snowflower and the Secret Fan and Peony in Love, BTW.) I can’t speak for everyone, but personally I felt it could have used some lightness—humor, romance, wit…anything to relieve the grimness of the story.

YA lit has its share of misery right now, too. Suzanne Collins, in her post-apocalyptic novels, The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, while making every moment gripping and often terrifying, somehow managed to instill a bit of hope. Maybe it’s in the quiet way Peeta loves Katniss, or in the way each wishes to save the other. I wish other writers of dystopian fiction would work a little harder at taking the edge off the hopelessness with a bit of joy. Find something to celebrate in all the bleakness. Something with a human connection.

I know we’re living in a scary, crazy world, and modern fiction reflects the concerns and anxieties of writers, and readers, too, I suppose. But I do wish all the horror, hopelessness, and mayhem could be interspersed with some offsetting moments of happiness. Isn’t that more reflective of life?

To quote Daisy Goodwin again, “I’m more of a light and shade person and there does need to be some joy, not just misery.”

What do you think? Are you longing for a little joy and humor in your reading?

A writer of historical fiction, her specialty is the Middle Ages. She has nineteen books to her credit. See what I mean about not discovering her before now? Especially since her first book was published in 1989 (The Wild Hunt), and is still in print.

After I read  The Champion (1998), I took a look at her web site. It’s beautifully designed, has a Medieval look to it, and is packed with information about her books and research. You can also find her reference library (an extensive list of her resources), her biography, a glossary, music she enjoys listening to while writing, and much more.

The Champion begins with the two brothers, Hervi and Alexander, around whom most of the story revolves. Hervi is the older, and a seasoned tourney knight. He believes his younger brother Alexander is leading the religious life at Cranwell Abbey, where he’d been sent as a young boy. Abused by one of the priests, however, Alexander escapes and sets out to find his brother. Exhausted and near starvation when he arrives at Hervi’s camp, Alexander begs to be taken in. When he regains his health, Alexander begins training to become a tourney knight.

Monday de Cerizay and her mother and father are friends of Hervi and also live in the camp. As she and Alexander grow older, Monday begins to have feelings for Alexander, but by this time he’s made a name for himself on the field and is sought after by many beautiful maidens. One night, when both he and Monday have had too much wine, she gives in to her feelings for him and they make love. Although Alexander offers her marriage, she realizes he doesn’t love her, and having lost both her mother and father, she sets off on her own.

There are some excellent villains in this book. Eudo le Boucher, a fearsome tourney knight who wants Alexander dead; King John, who takes Monday as his mistress, then casts her aside for his twelve-year-old bride; Monday’s own grandfather, who wants her only to broker a marriage with a wealthy family; and perhaps the worst of all: Brother Alkmund, the sub-prior of Cranwell Abbey. At one point, le Boucher and Monday’s grandfather join together to destroy Alexander, with the king’s tacit approval. Chadwick does an especially good job with King John (brother of Richard the Lionhearted). He’s selfish and heartless, uses people cruelly, and is by nature jealous. When the child he and Monday have together dies, he expresses no sorrow and has no words of comfort for her.

The historical detail in this book is meticulous, so visual and rich, I felt as if I were watching a movie. Chadwick’s description of the clothing–rendered in especially great detail because Monday is a sempstress–is outstanding. Everything to do with the tourney field, and actual battles as well, is real and immediate, including descriptions of the swords and swordplay, shields, chain mail, and horsemanship.

I can’t wait to read another of Chadwick’s books!

Then someone in my Jane Austen group suggested I read a Georgette Heyer novel. Supposedly, the next best thing to reading Jane. Not my words, nor the words of the person who recommended Heyer, but I actually did read that somewhere recently. So I read Bath Tangle, and I loved it, which forced me to read several more of her books. Georgette Heyer, for the uninitiated, is the queen of Regency romance. She practically invented the genre. Her books are full of witty repartee, undercurrents of sexual tension, and meticulous historical detail. Heyer wrote from the 1920’s up until her death in 1974.

Someone else suggested Mary Balogh. I started with A Summer To Remember, read all the Simply’s, plus a few others, and I loved them all. Typically, they have a certain sweetness about them. Then I discovered Julia Quinn. Besides five of the Bridgerton family novels, I read The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever and  Mr. Cavendish, I Presume. Quinn’s trademark seems to be humor, sometimes of the laugh-out-loud variety. Then I got going on Jo Beverly and her Rogues, and after that, Stephanie Laurens and the Bastion Club. Are you getting the picture?

Last winter, I was knitting a sweater that was way beyond my abilities, and therefore taking forever. To entertain myself, I began listening to audios of some of these books. Doing so saved me from insanity. Although in retrospect, perhaps concentrating too much on the stories caused me to make all those mistakes which eventually had to be ripped out. Unlike Georgette Heyer’s books, the modern regencies are very sexy!

For pure escapism, the Regencies can’t be beat. Oh, yes, there’s a formula to them, but that’s okay. It’s what romance readers expect, indeed, demand. At least I think it is. Because, as I mentioned before, I’m not really a romance reader.

Last Sunday I pretended to be Cassandra Austen, sister of the famous writer. I was on a panel of “siblings” at the Denver/Boulder regional meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America. We panelists fielded questions from our members regarding the sibs-four of the brothers and one sister.

The most compelling question for me as Cassandra was, of course, “Why did you destroy the letters?” What I wanted to say was, “It’s complicated!” But as Cassie, I couldn’t. So, here’s what I actually said:

“Jane and I had a habit of ‘censoring’ each other’s letters when we shared them with the family-leaving out sections when we read them out loud. We both desired this holding back of details meant for ourselves alone.

“I lived 28 years after Jane’s death, thus allowing me a great deal of time to decide what to do with her letters. I destroyed many of them due to their personal and private content. This is what Jane would have wanted. Some were written during periods of great stress, such as the aftermath of the family’s decision to move to Bath; others contained remarks which may have been hurtful to others.

“Jane never desired fame. She wanted recognition, to be taken seriously as a writer, but never fame. Publishing her most private and personal correspondence would have been disgusting to her.”

Other than her correspondence with Cassandra, Jane Austen’s surviving letters are mainly to her nieces and nephews, and a few to friends. Not one to her mother or father. None to Henry, her favorite brother, and the one who helped publish her novels not only in her lifetime, but also after her death. She didn’t live to see Persuasion and Northanger Abbey in print; Cassandra and Henry made certain that the world would have all her work. And we are eternally grateful!

One poignant image I haven’t been able to get out of my mind: Henry riding alongside the carriage carrying Jane Austen and Cassandra to Winchester, Jane’s final journey.  Apparently it rained throughout the 16 mile trip. How appropriate.

Most of the book is set in England, in 1794. Sovay, betrayed by her first love, decides to re-invent herself as a highwayman. As it turns out, she robs a coach carrying the lover who spurned her. He then takes his revenge by reporting her father as a traitor.

Sovay goes to London to try to warn her father, who has been away from Compton, their country home, for some time. The housekeeper informs her that her father is no longer there. Meanwhile, Gabriel, son of the Compton steward, checks on Sovay’s brother Hugh at Oxford. He discovers that Hugh was “sent down” because he wrote a seditions pamphlet. He has fled to France.

While in London, Sovay meets the spymaster Robert Dysart. As it turns out, he’s the one orchestrating the campaign against Sovay’s father, and countless others. A high official in the British government, he obsesses about the English rebelling, as the French did. He has taken matters into his own hands and is the epitome of evil.

Sovay is surrounded by men: Gabriel Stanhope; Virgil Barrett, an American who has taken on the job of warning people about Dysart; Captain Greenwood, a highwayman Sovay meets in her escapades; her brother Hugh, who finally makes an appearance in London; Mr. Oldfield, family friend and solicitor who is also working against Dysart. Eventually, in the last third of the book, Sovay, Hugh, and Virgil end up fleeing to France because they’re wanted for treason in England. There, Sovay meets the dashing Captain Leon, a passionate believer in the French cause. The two fall in love.

The French Revolution has devolved into chaos, with Robespierre at the helm, executing citizens by the hundreds. Sovay’s father is in prison, dangerously ill and awaiting execution. Although Virgil and Leon both try to save her, Sovay herself ends up in prison with her father.

I don’t want to reveal the ending, but it seemed a bit too easy. My only other criticism of the book is that all the men–Gabriel, Virgil, Greenwood, and Leon–are in love with Sovay. Beautiful, clever, and daring, Sovay is undoubetedly appealing, but isn’t it a bit unrealistic that every man she meets immediately falls for her?

But these are minor flaws in an otherwise captivating and wonderfully written book. Sovay is a great read, with danger coming at a furious pace. The political intrigue seems real and always threatening. Thoroughly grounded in her research, Rees made this frightening time come alive for me.

Have you read it, or any of Rees’s other books? What did you think?

The first book in the series, Silent in the Grave, involves the death of Lady Julia’s husband. Turns out-big surprise-he was murdered. Brisbane, whom her husband had consulted prior to his death, reluctantly steps in to help solve the mystery. He and Lady Julia have an adversarial relationship as well as a strong attraction to each other. Turns out Lady Julia’s marriage was not a happy one, so falling for another man so soon after her husband’s death is easily forgiven. The mystery is intriguing, and the murderer turns out to be someone you’d least suspect.
The next book, Silent in the Sanctuary, though featuring many of the same characters, had a less plausible mystery, with too many threads to be untangled. The big shocker occurs early, when Lady Julia arrives at her family home after a prolonged stay in Italy and finds Brisbane there. Not only there, but engaged to another woman. That certainly made me want to read on.

Silent on the Moor was released just this year, in an original paperback. The mystery was more engaging, as were the characters. The major hitch in this book comes at the beginning, when despite Brisbane’s specific wish that they not come, Lady Julia and her sister and brother show up at his new estate on the Yorkshire moors. Julia justifies this by saying that when Brisbane most protests her presence in his life, that is when he most needs her. An undeniably romantic sentiment, but getting past that was a problem for me.

Sometimes I think adversarial romantic relationships go too far. The lovers seem so hostile to each other, one wonders how or why they could actually be in love. There should always be obstacles to overcome in a relationship, but the way in which Brisbane keeps Lady Julia at arm’s length is too much. I’d have given up on him many times over before the end.

But these were minor distractions in otherwise enjoyable reads. Have you read any books in this series? What did you think?

Some crucial ingredients for historical mysteries, at least in my mind, are characterization, period detail, and mood. And of course, a mystery that keeps you guessing until the end, with plenty of plot twists and reversals. A little romance thrown into the mix isn’t bad, either!

Two series I’ve been into lately are C.S.’s Harris’s Sebastian St. Cyr mysteries, set during the Regency, and Deanna Raybourn’s Lady Julia Gray mysteries, which are Victorian. They make an interesting contrast: the first with a male protagonist, the second, a woman.

Sebastian St. Cyr, the dashing Viscount Devlin, is our hero in Harris’s books. There are now four of them: What Angels Fear, When Gods Die, Where Serpents Sleep, and Why Mermaids Sing. Devlin is handsome, smart, brooding, fearless, and his life itself is a mystery of sorts. He was not in line to inherit his father’s title, but his two older brothers both died young. He feels he’s been a disappointment to his father, especially because of his liaison with Kat Boleyn, an actress. In the third book, he finds out the real reason his father is so opposed to their romance, and it’s devastating. But, of course, all may not be what it seems.

Lord Jarvis, Devlin’s archenemy, is the man running the government, for all intents and purposes, given that the ridiculous Prince Regent is now king. You can count on Jarvis pulling strings in the background, working against Devlin in some devious capacity. His daughter, Hero, introduced in the first book as a somewhat lackluster spinster, becomes more intriguing in each book, and in the fourth one, she and Viscount Devlin develop a more personal relationship.

Adding to the mix is Sebastian’s uncanny and almost supernatural ability to see in the dark and hear sounds most normal people would miss. We also have a mystery surrounding his mother. Initially, we believe her to be dead, but we now know she’s alive, living in France. At the end of the last book, it looked as if Devlin was on his way to mending his relationship with his father. One can only wonder, now, what will happen between Devlin and Kat; Devlin and Hero; and Devlin and his mother!

Harris has a new book coming out later this year, so we won’t have to wait too long for more of Viscount Devlin’s adventures. In a future post, I’ll talk about the Lady Julia Gray series.

Some of what was wrong with this book could have been fixed by line editing, or an editor’s eye. Certain phrases were repeated numerous times. For example, when Maisie shook hands with male detectives from Scotland Yard, she’d say, “He held onto my hand a few more seconds than was absolutely necessary.” That lets us know, I guess, that they’re attracted to Maisie and revealing their feelings in an inappropriate way which she does not appreciate. Part of the humorlessness, I guess.

I’ve enjoyed the earlier books in the series. In fact, I couldn’t wait until the second one made its appearance. But I was disappointed with the last one, too.

In Among the Mad, the theme is the shameful treatment of WWI vets and the way in which it sends one man over the edge. This has been a thread running through all the Maisie Dobbs books, and appropriately. Given the horrors of that war for Europeans, and the millions who died or came home maimed, it’s about time for an author who has a wide audience to bring a forgotten part of history to life–especially for Americans, who tend to think they were the saviors. Think about the song “Over There.” “The Yanks are coming, the yanks are coming, etc.” We didn’t show up until the very end.

But I thought Winspear was rather heavy handed in driving her point home, with too many interior monologues and/or written diary entries that basically made the same arguments again and again, until it no longer seemed sympathetic to me. The author’s portrayal of Maisie’s brain-damaged fiancee Simon, before his death, was more empathetic and humane, in my view.

As always, I enjoyed the human interest created by Billy, Maisie’s assistant, and the predicament of his unfortunate wife Doreen. The horrofic way in which people with emotional problems were treated was not reserved for returning vets alone. Maisie comes alive in her dealings with Billy and his family. She seems more loving, open, and well, more like the rest of us.

With her legions of fans, Winspear is sure to have another success with her latest. What did you think? Agree or disagree?

It will take time for me to digest this book. I’ll try to very briefly encapsulate the plot: A country called Panem is divided into 12 districts which surround the Capitol, a gleaming, prosperous city where all power and wealth reside. We learn that Panem was once North America, apparently destroyed by global warming and other disasters. In the aftermath, Panem was formed, comprised of 13 districts. During an uprising many years ago, District 13, once a part of Panem, was blasted out of existence. In order for all citizens to be reminded of the suffering that might ensue were any other rebellions to take place, each year there are the Hunger Games. First, The Reaping, which simply is the drawing of names. One girl and one boy from each district is chosen. When twelve-year-old Primrose Everdeen’s name is called, her big sister Katniss steps in to take her place. She knows there’s no way her younger sibling could survive the games.

In fact, only one person will survive. The district representatives fight to the death, until only one person remains. The Games are set up in a very elaborate way, with people known as “Gamemakers” pulling all the strings. By chance, the other representative from District 11, a boy named Peeta, is the very one who once gave Katniss a few loaves of bread when her family would surely have starved to death without it. The thought of having to kill or be killed by Peeta preys on Katniss’s mind almost constantly.

Unbeknownst to Katniss, the strategists have decreed that, in order to gain sponsors, Peeta and Katniss will pretend to be in love. When Peeta begins to reveal his feelings for her, she’s not sure what’s real and what is strategy.

We know from the beginning that Catniss is an exceptional girl. She’s been her own family’s salvation since the death of her father four years ago. Her mother went into a deep melancholy after he died, and Catniss has had to be the sole provider for the family. Along the way, she formed a bond with a boy named Gale, her hunting partner. She trusts him to look after her mother and Primrose while she’s at the Games, and while she says they’ve never had a romantic relationship, we can’t help feeling that Gale most likely would have a different perspective. Overall, Catniss seems to have a big blind spot where romance is involved.

I found the beginning of the book haunting and depressing and sad, the way in which The Road, by Cormac MacCarthy, was. As I listened on walks, I found myself crying, sometimes even sobbing, having to look down as other walkers approached. The reader, or listener in my case, feels hopeless. How could this have a satisfying, or even hopeful, ending?

The part of the story involving the preparation for the games, the “branding,” if you will, of each pair of contestants, was the least interesting part of the story, I thought. I understand the necessity–it furthers the horrifying idea that all this is for the entertainment of the Capitol and the people of Panem. But that part of the book seemed to drag a little.

Once the games start, the story is absolutely riveting. Not only are the participants playing against each other, they’re also at the mercy of the Gamemakers, who can control the weather, provide water or take it away, start wildfires, and dangle desperately needed supplies as bait to draw the players into the open. The young representatives start, one by one, to die, in gruesome and unforgettable ways. Each night, portraits of the dead flash into the sky, so that each player knows who’s left in this inhuman contest. Contestants popular with the audience draw sponsors, who sometimes send you much needed supplies or medicines. These float down from the sky via silver parachutes, and of course help keep recipients alive to fight another day.

Since this is The Hunger Games: Book One, we know there’s more to come. I have the feeling that Gale, who’s a rebel at heart, will enlist Katniss in another uprising against the Capitol. I was disappointed that the contestants didn’t rebel against their situation in this book, but when I learned it was the first of a trilogy, I understood that Book One was laying the groundwork. But ultimately, if there’s no rebellion, the cruelty of the Hunger Games becomes somewhat pointless.

I was disappointed that The Hunger Games was shut out of the Printz Awards. With its fully realized characters, creative plot, and brilliant writing, I thought it deserved an award.

What’s your opinion?

Hard Face Moon focuses on events leading up to the horrific Sand Creek Massacre. The reader sees the action unfold through the eyes of Hides Inside, a Cheyenne boy. After the trauma of losing both parents when he was barely old enough to walk, Hides Inside hasn’t spoken. Although he sometimes feels words rising in his throat and tries to force them out, nothing happens.

Because he doesn’t speak, Hides Inside is taunted unmercifully by the other boys, especially by Two Crows, his archenemy. Every so often, he loses control and fights back, inevitably disappointing his brother, Standing Tall, whom he loves and admires. More than anything, Hides Inside wants to be a proud Cheyenne warrior like Standing Tall. Meanwhile Standing Tall, older, wiser, and more experienced, believes the Cheyenne should try to make peace with the white men and is beginning to put aside the ways of a warrior.

Hides Inside’s growth pains are something all boys and girls can identify with. He wants to go on raids, fight, and count coup. He wants to be someone who is celebrated and honored when he returns to camp. Too young to make his own decisions, Hides Inside must wait until Standing Tall believes he’s ready. Until he learns patience and self-discipline, his older brother will not allow him to train to become a warrior.

Both Hides Inside and Two Crows disagree with the peace-seeking efforts of their chiefs. This is the one thing they have in common. As the story progresses and both boys mature, Hides Inside begins to grow in his understanding of Two Crows.

Oswald’s style is perfectly suited to this story. Her spare prose seems to meld with Cheyenne ways and culture, most of all with the heart and mind of Hides Inside. Hard Face Moon is rich with imagery, perfectly portraying the way Hides Inside experiences the world. Picture this: “We leave the valley between the two ridges and climb onto the flat. Now it is easy to see everyone stretched out in a long line like colored beads on an invisible rope.” Hear and feel this:  “Wind presses against my cheeks, chanting a wild earth song as my pony’s hooves drum the ground.”

The end captures the true horror of the massacre, and we feel the overwhelming sadness and pain of Hides Inside and his people as they suffer the full extent of their betrayal by white soldiers.  Reading Hard Face Moon is a far more meaningful way for students to learn about what happened that awful day at Big Sandy Creek than reading from a textbook could ever be.

Ms. Oswald provides an Author’s Note to help with the historical context, as well as a Timeline of Events and a bibliography for those who want to read more.