Wrap-Up of the 2021 Nonfiction Reader Challenge

I signed up to read six books for this year's nonfiction reading challenge. I read seven, which is more than I have read in the past 10 years. Non-fiction is not a genre I have ever read much of but I found that I really liked the books that I selected for the challenge.

The Queen's Marriage by Lady Colin Campbell

The Cartiers by Francesca Cartier Brickell

The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson

The Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe

Yellow by Michael Pasteaureau

Dear Abigail by Diane Jacobs

Revolutionary Mothers by Carol Berlin

Favorite Book:  Empire of Pain

2nd Favorite Book:  Revolutionary Mothers

Least Favorite Book:  Yellow

I purchased an additional three books for the challenge but have not read them yet.  If the challenge is renewed in 2022 I will definitely join.  This was a successful challenge for me as every author was new to me.

The Flower Boat Girl

The Flower Boat Girl is the story of Shek Yang who rises from being sold into the sex trade as a young girl to becoming the most powerful female pirate known to sail the South China Sea. In 1801, Yang has finally bought her freedom but is soon kidnapped by a brutal pirate gang and forced to marry their leader.  She needs to be scrappy to survive her circumstances and she carves out a role against the resistance of powerful pirate leaders, including her husband's male concubine.  Eventually, Yang has to choose between power over the pirates and love.  The novel is based on a true story.

I rarely review a book that I did not finish but this one requires comment.  The author uses crude and course descriptions of Yang's sex acts with men. You know that a man wrote a book when this type of language is used. Women just don't use certain descriptions. I am surprised that the author chose a woman as his main character because it is hard for men to accurately write about women and vice versa. I made it to page 70. There was no explanation of how Yang got into various situations, just one nasty sex act after another. How is the reader to know what the story is about when you go from one rape to another?  The reader at least needs to know something about the main character other than she is being raped by many men over 70 pages. In those 70 pages she was still a sex slave, I presume. There is no way to tell from these pages where we are in the plot.

I am surprised that the book has had many good reviews, half of them from women. At a minimum I would call this novel soft core porn.  Skip it.  0 out of 5 stars.

Wrap-Up of the 2021 Chunkster Challenge

 

The rules for the Chunkster Challenge had no limit on the number of books required to read but the books had to be 450 pages or more.  I found 16.  Actually, I found 17 but will not have time to read Edward Rutherford's London until next year.  Here's what I read:

With No One as Witness by Elizabeth George

America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray

The Lost Daughter by Gill Paul

The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson

The Cartiers by Francesca Cartier Brickell

My Dear Hamilton by Stephanie Dray

Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe

Beneath an Indian Sky by Renita D'Silva

China by Edward Rutherford

Dear Abigail by Diane Jacobs

The Cellist by Daniel Silva

Dominus by Steve Saylor

Sweet Tooth Compendium Edition by Jeff Lemire

Peril by Bob Woodward

The Stolen Lady by Laura Morelli

The Widow Queen by Elzbieta Cherezinska

Favorite Book:  China

2nd Favorite Book:  Dominus

Least Favorite Book:  With No One as Witness. 

All of these books except one was rated 5 out of 5 stars. With No One as Witness was rated 2 out of 5 stars so it gets the least favorite title.  9 of the authors were new to me!

I love going to my local bookstore and roaming for chunky books.  They stand out on the bookshelves and are easy to find.  Usually they are epic historical fiction novels but this year some of my favorite mystery writers published big books. The challenge is running again in 2022 and I will be signing up.

Stacking the Shelves #10

 

The Stacking the Shelves meme is hosted by the Reading Reality blog. It was originally hosted by the Team Tynga's Reviews blog and now is solely hosted by Reading Reality. I am looking forward to reading the new graphic novel by Rutu Modan. Tunnels was published on Tuesday and I am waiting to receive it in the mail. Modan is one of my favorite comic writers. In the Tunnels story there is a race to find the Ark of the Covenant and it explores the ethics of the international antiquities trade.  

When a great antiquities collector is forced to donate his entire collection to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Nili Broshi sees her last chance to finish an archeological expedition that began decades earlier.  Motivated by the desire to reinstate her father's legacy as an archeologist, Nili enlists the assistance of a ragtag crew - a religious nationalist, her traitorous brother and her childhood Palestinian friend. As Nili's father slips deeper into dementia, warring factions close in on and fight over the Ark of the Covenant.

Where are you mail?

Turkey Trot Murder

The Turkey Trot Murder takes place in Tinker's Cove, Maine where the our protagonist, Lucy Stone lives. Lucy expects that the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday will be uneventful. However, while training for the annual turkey trot 5K Lucy sees a dead body frozen in Blueberry Pond. Alison Franklin, daughter of the wealthy Ed Franklin, struggled with opioid addiction after an injury a year prior. The police blame her death on an accidental overdose but Lucy, a reporter for the local paper, disagrees. Alison had it all, wealth, looks and education. While covering the funeral for the paper, Lucy is puzzled to see Ed Franklin bring his new, young and pregnant wife Mireille with him. Alison's mother, Eudora Clare, arrives at the funeral with her new husband covered in black gauze to outshine Mireille. As the residents of Tinker's Cove become uneasy over the third drug death in a year, Lucy investigates Alison's death for her paper. Soon, a new family moves into town to reopen a restaurant. The Rodriguezes are Hispanic and are opposed by the community who blames Mexicans for the drug epidemic.  Ed Franklin is the most vocal of them. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the book but readers who are tired of hearing about the national divide over immigration will want to skip it. The author takes a Democratic point of view on immigration. There is much more to the story though. The mystery over Alison's death deepens when another resident is killed. We also have several opposing parties in the story.  Mireille versus Eudora, Ed versus Rey Rodgriguez and Lucy's daughter Zoe versus Matt Rodriguez. You don't know which of them will prevail. Turkey Trot Murder is the 24th Lucy Stone Mystery but I have only read 2 of them previously.  I thought that these cozies were too traditional for my taste but Turkey Trot has an intricate plot with tight writing.   I highly recommend it.

5 out of 5 stars.

The Waiting

The Waiting is a fictional account of the life of the author's mother. The story is set in Korea before, during and after the Korean War in both North and South Korea. When Gwija was 17 her family rushed to marry her off because they had heard that the Japanese occupiers were seizing unmarried girls. However, Japan soon fell and Korea gained its independence. Gwija began having children and while she was on the run out of North Korea she became separated from her husband and young son. While she searched for them for days, Gwija soon realized that if she didn't leave them behind that she would be stuck in the North. Seventy years later, daughter Jina decides to help her mother locate her lost son as well as a lost sister. She is hopeful that a program that unites families from both countries for a day will select Gwija into the program. Most of the narrative of this graphic novel focuses on Gwija's march south. American jets overhead shot at the refugees, increasing the desperation of the migrants. 

The author's first graphic novel, Grass, dealt with the women who were taken by the Japanese soldiers during WWII. The history of Korea continues with The Waiting. Both stories are heartbreaking. Here we read about the pain people felt over the separation of their country and, fortunately, before this older generation passes into history. Most Koreans are much younger and do not understand what it feels like to be separated from your family. The story is quite sad but is informative for those of us lucky to not have experienced what the author calls the "wounds of war."  

5 out of 5 stars.

The Widow Queen

The Widow Queen is much more than a biography of Poland's Swietoslawa.  It is also the saga of the rulers of Poland, Russia, Denmark, Sweden and parts of Germany in the late 10th century. Swietoslawa's family calls her "the bold one." Her father, Duke Mieszko, plans on using all three of his daughters to make foreign alliances that will strengthen his power in the region. While the daughters tell him their preferences for husbands, Mieszko uses them strategically. However, Swietoslawa refuses to be a pawn in his schemes. She wants a throne of her own, with no husband by her side. This novel is Book 1 in the author's Bold One series.

There are many names and details to remember when reading this book. It covers alot of ground and is a slow read for that reason only. It remains a captivating tale. Our heroine is renamed Sigrid by her new husband, the king of Sweden. It was chosen because it was easier for his subjects to pronounce and it is a Swedish name, which any Swedish queen must have. Her brother Boleslaw is the heir to the Polish throne but depending on what chapter you are on, you will read about different heirs to multiple European thrones. All of them are strategizing to gain power by determining the best marriage options and also which potential rulers can be trusted. 

I enjoyed reading about these powerhouses in Eastern Europe. I also loved that the time period was the tenth century. Most of the historical fiction novels that I read take place in England, France or Germany during the Middle Ages.  The Widow Queen was a nice change. All of the characters are historical figures whom I had never heard of before.  I found myself going to Wikipedia to become more familiar with them.  A few of them include Sven of Denmark, Olav of Norway, Eric of Sweden, and Vladimir of Rus. 

Book 2 in the series has already been published in Poland. It looks like author Elzbieta Cherezinska has written a couple of other series set in the same time period but because I can't read Polish it is hard to tell. I hope all of them are translated into English because she is a fabulous writer. I love that she is writing about a place and time historical fiction fans don't see much of.

5 out of 5 stars.

Menorca Sketchbook

The Menorca Sketchbook is Graham Byfield's newest watercolor travelogue by Talisman Publishing. He is an English watercolor artist who summers in Menorca where he owns his own gallery. As with all the watercolor travelogues published by Talisman, the paper that the book is printed on is actual watercolor paper. This enhances the appearance of the drawings, making them look like original drawings. The publisher also uses a font that looks like handwriting for the descriptions of the drawings, which gives their books an arty feel. In addition, the travelogue shows Menorca by neighborhood, with some written material about it. Here, we have drawings of architecture and parks in Mahon, Cindadela, various villages, the countryside and the coast.

This sketchbook is different from Byfield's earlier sketchbooks in that there are only four full page drawings. Usually these types of books predominantly contain full page or double page drawings. I was disappointed that most of them have three to four drawings per page. For me, it is harder to see the detail in a small drawing. Byfield's style is somewhat loose, compared to other watercolor travelogue artists. However, with the written material on each neighborhood it is easy to figure out where everything is located on the island.  

While Menorca has been on my bucket list for years, this travelogue is not inspiring me to push it up my list.  It does not look as inviting as other places that Byfield has drawn, such as Cambridge. The Cambridge Sketchbook is my favorite of all of them.  

3 out of 5 stars.

The Tenant

OMG!  I think The Tenant is the best book I have read this year. Advertised as a suspense novel, that is quite an understatement. Suspense exuded not only from every page but from every sentence.  The story begins with landlord Alex Mason painting one of the units in his luxury apartment complex in Philadelphia. He hopes to rent it quickly when he is approached by Stephanie Winters, a woman who works for a U. S. senator.  Alex signs a lease with her without checking her background references or employer. Big mistake. Soon another tenant's cat is found dead and dismembered on their doorstep. Then yet another tenant is murdered in his home.  Alex believes that Stephanie is the culprit in these incidences. Hindered by state laws giving tenants plenty of legal rights, Alex begins to investigate his tenant after she threatens his family. 

This book reminded me of Apartment 6 which I read last year.  It was written in Hitchcock style. The tension began with the first chapter and continued through to an unexpected ending. I loved it. Stephanie's past history explained her behavior but it was just as interesting as what she was doing in the plot. She would make an awesome character for a crime series. Alex was timid for a landlord. I have never had one myself that did not care if a tenant broke the rules. To be more believable, Alex should have been a screaming bastard. However, he needed to be unsuspecting for this spectacular plot to work.

10 out of 5 stars!

The French House

This historical fiction novel had me spellbound from the first page. The story is about Nicole Ponsardin who marries into the Clicquot family and becomes the Widow Clicquot of France's champagne fame. The champagne is actually called Veuve Clicquot. Veuve means widow. It is the best in the world and the only kind I buy. It was exciting to find out after I began the book that it was about her.  

The publisher's summary:

"Reims, France, 1805.  Looking back at the crumbling house hidden away in the vineyards, the sound of her daughter's laughter carrying on the breeze, Nicole plucks a perfect red grape and is reminded her life will never be the same. With her husband gone, her troubles are hers alone.

For grieving Nicole Clicquot, saving the vineyards her husband left behind is her one chance to keep a roof over her head and provide a future for her little girl.  She ignores the gossips who insist the fields are no place for a women: but one day, buying fresh croissants at the boulangerie, Nicole is shocked to hear a rumor about her husband.  They say he died with a terrible secret.  One that brings disgrace on Nicole and turns the whole town against her.

Heartbroken, her reputation in tatters, and full of questions no one can answer, Nicole turns to her husband's oldest friend, traveling merchant Louis.  His warm smile and kind advice seem to melt her troubles away.  And as they taste her first golden wine of the season and look out over the endless rolling hills, Nicole starts to believe that she can turn her fortunes around, and be welcomed back into the local community. 

But when Louis avoids her after a long trip abroad, Nicole sees he has secrets of his own...and just as she doubts if he's on her side, she realizes how her feelings for him had grown.  Desperately torn between her head and her heart, Nicole works day and night on a plan for her future: but to save her home and her little daughter from ruin, she must risk everything."

 

I had heard several years ago the Madame Clicquot had an incredible life story.  I did not know why but it prompted me to buy Tilar Mazzeo's The Widow Clicquot, a non-fiction account of her life.  While I haven't yet read it, I now cannot wait to start it.

If you love drinking champagne you are going to love this book. Just reading about the growing of the grapes is enticing. Nicole is an unusual heroine for her time. She pursued owning and operating her "home business" during an era when women did not work. She learned to be just as ruthless as the men in her pursuit of the perfect wine and also in sales. Nicole was a big risk taker, necessary to be successful in any business in any era. Always the subject of nasty gossip, Nicole just ignored it and never let it get her down. Her eyes were always on the prize: her vineyards. An entrepreneur needs to have these traits in order to succeed. 

I was surprised that Paris was viewed by most of the characters as a dirty city filled with nasty people while Reims was viewed as paradise on earth. The scenes that occur in Paris portray its extreme wealth but with that nasty sewer smell too. The fact that most of the characters were farmers explains their preferred city. They could smell the dirt in which their grapes were growing. I guess after a few years harvesting grapes you get accustomed to the "fragrance de terroir." 

While the setting was prominent, this is really a book about growing a business. All of the hurdles that Nicole found herself dealing with had to do with the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. It is much more than a historical biography. 5 out of 5 stars.

Thin Air

Thin Air was published in 2014 and is part of Ann Cleeves' Shetland Island Mystery Series. It has been made into a hit TV show in Britain. While I have read 2 other books in the series with limited fervor, this novel is probably the best one that I have read. The book was selected for the Monthly Key Word Challenge.  

In this installment of the series a group of old university friends return to Shetland in a hamefarin' to attend the wedding of one of them. Polly and Eleanor have accompanied Caroline home to wed Lowrie.  Eleanor disappears the day after the wedding. She had claimed to have seen the ghost of a local girl, Peerie Lizzy, who had drowned in the 1920s. Police inspector Jimmy Perez and Willow Reeves become involved after Eleanor's body is found. Both wonder whether Eleanor was murdered and whether the ghost of the child is a myth.  

These mysteries are all slow paced. Thin Air is not different in that respect. Although I feel that the pace was somewhat faster than the earlier books I read, it was bogged down in setting description and character dialogue. The Shetland Islands have beautiful scenery but when the reader gets too much atmosphere and not enough action, the books can be dull. In this novel, the murder investigation is at least prominent on most of the pages. Inbetween chapters about the investigation, are chapters about Perez's family life. He is the series protagonist but has never captured my attention.  

Thin Air is the last book by Ann Cleeves that I intend to read. If I need to miss meeting a reading challenge to avoid it, I will.  2 out of 5 stars.

Twisted Tea Christmas

The Twisted Tea Christmas is the 23rd installment of the Indigo Teashop Mystery series by Laura Childs.  While I have heavily criticized her writing in the past 5 years, this novel puts her back on track. It is fantastic. I always love it when the murder occurs quickly so that the rest of the book can be about the solving of the murder.  Here, we have a murder on the 5th page and is is not resolved until the second to last page.  The publisher's summary is below:

Tea maven Theodosia Browning and her tea sommelier, Drayton Connelley, are catering a Victorian Christmas party at a swanky mansion in downtown Charleston for Drucilla Hayward, one of the wealthiest women in town. As the champagne flows and the tea steeps, Drucilla is so pleased with the success of her soiree that she reveals her secret plan to Theodosia.  The grande dame has brought the cream of Charleston society together to reveal that she is planning to give her wealth away to various charitable organizations. However, before she can make the announcement, Theodosia finds her crumpled unconscious in the hallway. It looks like the excitement has gotten to the elderly women, but it may have been helped along by the syringe in her neck.  

I am happy that there were no cheesy statements like "the phone rang ding-a-ling-ring" and that secondary character Delaine Dish's emotions were under control.  The main change that I liked is that the murder did not occur in the same place as it did in the prior 22 books.  It was time for a change and we now have a perfectly plotted and written cozy mystery to enjoy.  There was something else new that tickled my fancy. One evening when Theodosia went to bed with a book, it was a  book written by Susan Wittig Albert!  Albert writes the China Bayles cozy mystery series. I have to wonder if Childs and Albert are friends.

The Charleston setting was a good choice to place the series in.  It has marvelous architecture, fairly nice weather and history galore.  It gives the writer alot to work with when creating atmosphere. The main characters are Theodosia, Drayton and police investigator Burt Tidwell.  These characters have grown over the years but in Twisted Tea Christmas they do not have growth, they just work together to solve the murder. I loved this as I am mainly a whodunnit fan. Author Childs gives us plenty of red herrings, more than we usually have in her books. It made the novel suspenseful.  In fact, I had a hard time figuring out who committed the murder and was surprised at the ending.  

I am proud to give this book a rating of 5 out of 5 stars. Ya'll need to read this one.

The Good Death

The Good Death is the 5th book in S. D. Sykes' Somerhill Manor Mystery series. It began with Plague Land and is set in 14th Century England. The sleuth is Oswald de Lacy, a third son who was originally sent to a monastery as a child. However, he was called home to become lord of the family manor following the death of his father and two older brothers during a plague epidemic. 

In the opening of this installment of the series Lord Oswald de Lacy makes a devastating confession to his dying mother.  He is an eighteen-year-old novice monk at Kintham Abbey and had been sent to collect herbs from the forest. While there, Oswald came across a terrified village girl named Agnes Wheeler. She was terrified of him even though she knew him well and ran headlong into a river saying "stay away from me priest." She drowned. Oswald pulled her broken and bruised body from the water and returned her to the local village. Here he discovers that several other women have disappeared within the past month. A killer is on the loose but because all of the missing women came from impoverished families nobody seemed to care. 

Oswald vows to find this killer himself but as the plague approaches, his tutor, Brother Peter, insists they stay inside the monastery.  Oswald instead seeks out the women of the village for help, particularly the beautiful Maud Woodstock, a woman who provokes strong emotions in him. As he closes in on the killer, Oswald makes a discovery that is so utterly shocking that it threatens to destroy him and his family.

If you haven't read any of the earlier books in the series you may not want to begin with this novel. It has an alternating plot that spans 20 years between 1347 and 1370. New readers may not be able to pick up the action from 1347 without knowing the characters well. It makes sense that with the 5th book in the series this would happen. The reason for the alternating plot concerns Oswald's dying mother in 1370. She is in possession of a letter from him written in 1349 when they were dealing with the Black Death. She needs an explanation from her son about those events so that she can forgive him of any sins he may have committed against her and obtain a good death.

That said, The Good Death is another perfectly plotted and written medieval mystery from Ms. Sykes. While we get a nice resolution of the murder itself, the ending also provides a shocking accusation from Oswald's mother over all the actions he has taken throughout his life. It was unexpected as it didn't relate to the murder mystery. I expect that the next novel in the series will expand upon this. I can't wait!

5 our of 5 stars.