I’m a pretty big fan of historical fiction, and I love a good mystery, so when I get my hands on a historical mystery, well watch out. And this one also employs one of my favorite techniques, the unreliable narrator. Wait, what’s that you say, multiple unreliable narrators? Stop it, you’re killing me! The main action of An Instance of the Fingerpost takes place in 1660s Oxford, after the Restoration of Charles II to the throne. I say “main action,” because the story is told […]
Eyeballs, cats, and tiger spirit monks, and a whole lot of kung-fu
This book reminded me in some ways of The Ghost Bride, but it’s also the total opposite in other ways. Both novels have a feisty heroine, but The Girl with Ghost Eye’s Li-lin is a lot more self-sufficient and less maiden in distress than Li Lan. Li-lin is a martial artist who has the ability to see supernatural creatures, and she’s also the daughter of the head of a priesthood specializing in protecting people from evil spirits in late 19th century San Francisco’s Chinatown. She […]
NightinFail
Spoilers in this review. This book made me tired. I confess, I do not get what everyone sees in The Nightingale. I feel like because it is set in WWII/the Holocaust, and we know that terrible things happened, this book had ALL OF THE TERRIBLE THINGS and we just accept that EVERY TERRIBLE THING happened to the characters because, of course, it was a time of terrible things. But it was too much; it was simply not believable to me after a point. But I’m […]
“The girls were wild for dancing, and nothing else. No hearts beat underneath those thin, bright dresses. They laughed like glass.”
3.5 stars This is a very imaginative and clever re-telling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses fairy-tale set in Prohibition NYC. The princesses are flappers and their father is some kind of business magnate trying to protect his family legacy without a son, the poor man. He keeps them locked up in their large home to protect their virtue and reputation, because that’s a surefire way to earn the obedience of teenagers. Here’s the overview from Goodreads: “Jo, the firstborn, “The General” to her eleven sisters, […]
The American Revolution Through Slaves’ Eyes
Laurie Halse Anderson’s award-winning YA novels set during the American Revolution are superb. Not only does she get her history correct — with fascinating detail about daily life for wealthy and working classes, Loyalists and Patriots, city life and army camp life — but she also provides narrators whose perspectives are unique and provocative. Isabel and Curzon are slaves. Each brings a different view of the revolution and what it means for them as slaves. The three novels take the reader from May of 1776, when […]
From an embattled son to a genocidal conqueror
In late February, as I was preparing for a work trip to Mongolia, it occurred to me that I knew nothing about the country. I knew nothing about the history or its culture, nothing about its customs or its icons. The only thing I knew was Genghis Khan, and… yea, just his name. That’s it. Luckily, a Pajiban mentioned the Conqueror Series by Conn Iggulden, recommending it as a historical fiction alternative to trawling Wikipedia (which is honestly what I would have done.) I downloaded […]
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