As people learned to say cheese.

Publisher: Barbour Publishing
Pages: 309
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-616-26506-9
First Published: 1st September 2011
Date Reviewed: 17th October 2014
Rating: 4/5

Addie moved to Dodge City with her uncle after troubles caused them to move from Abilene. Now Carl is dead and Addie is trying to build up their photography business by herself. She has a romance-minded friend, Fran, and then there’s the new Deputy Sheriff. Miles has started his new job, and has a few personal conflicts about the job, owing to his new found faith, but he’s excited nonetheless to be working as a lawman, especially given his past.

A Bride’s Portrait Of Dodge City, Kansas, is a pretty fair historical novel straddling the mystery, suspense, and romance genres.

Christianity features in this book. It is a big part of a few of the character’s lives however in terms of the novel itself the faith is woven in enough that the general reader should be okay with it. There are a couple of times where Miles feels he should be declaring his faith to his boss, which isn’t really appropriate, but otherwise the times the characters think of God are totally natural – Addie prays for help whilst hiding from shooting, for example. And there isn’t all that many textual references to it, it is more a case that the reader knows the characters have faith.

The language is generally very good, the characters well written. Addie is self-employed, a woman working as a photographer in the 1800s against various prejudices. She is strong throughout. Fran is a dreamer and doesn’t realise the potential danger ahead, and Vetsch does put her in some situations, including a scene of harsh words from the man who says he loves her, but overall you can see where the author was wanting to show how the good guy can be a mysterious knight in shining armour if given the chance. This said there is a scene in which a bad guy gets perhaps more nasty than he had previously seemed (yes, even for his associations) that readers may find uncomfortable for the way it plays out. Miles will appeal more to a Christian reader than otherwise, though either way you’re likely to see him as a fair hero.

There are repetitions, for instance you hear about Addie’s move from Abilene a few times and there aren’t really enough updates to warrant it until later in the book when she gives you the whole story, and these feel as though a word count was needed because as soon as the narrative moves away from it the story carries on well.

The book is somewhat predictable by fact of it’s romantic genre, but another thread that seems predictable is not so much. This said, the mystery and suspense take a somewhat surprising turn near the end and one of the most obvious suspects isn’t spoken of until this end. The suspense itself, however, is written excellently and Vetsch hasn’t shied away from the details, in fact it could be said she lures you into thinking everything will be just about drunken cowboys, red lights, and saloons, until getting to the gritty stuff. And she shows the difficult and otherwise immoral choices that must be made in times of emergency.

There is a great deal to learn about photography and the times in general. There is a lot of detail given to photography but not so much as to make it boring. Indeed if you’ve even the smallest interest in the subject you’ll likely enjoy Vetsch’s descriptions. The book is firmly in cowboy territory and the balance between ‘protect the women’ and Addie’s freedom is good. Fran could have done with more freedom to choose, but given the way she is presented from the start, you know she’s going to go back on her words somewhat.

Lastly, this may be a clean romance, but its kisses and thoughts are pretty steamy all the same. Indeed Vetsch shows you don’t need sex for a fair tale of romance.

What works in A Bride’s Portrait Of Dodge City, Kansas (it’s a long title but interesting for its difference) makes up the vast majority. There may be flaws but looking at the big picture the book is very good. Cowboys and photography, gangs and romance, independence and dependence; if you’re looking for a western with a bit of faith, you could do worse than read this book.

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For better or for worse.

Publisher: John Murray
Pages: 164
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-719-56771-1
First Published: 25th June 2002
Date Reviewed: 19th October 2014
Rating: 3.5/5

This is Meloy’s first collection of short stories, each confined to a scene or two and centred on emotion and the individual.

Half In Love is a short book that contains some magnificent stories and some average stories which, whilst not being in the same league as the author’s later work, do house that specialness that is unique to her.

Meloy is an expert at characterisation, pulling you into the character’s lives from the first moment; this is exactly what happens in these stories. A handful of pages long, and with Meloy’s writing style remaining as sparse as ever, you don’t expect the sheer amount of ‘pull’ there is to these stories. It’s as though an entire novel has passed before you, the stories being at once so in depth you feel you know everything there is to know about the characters whilst at the same time not being long enough. The characters practically leap off the page and it’s almost as though the lack of details as to who they are – hair colour, build, and so forth – lends the reader a freedom to truly know them. It doesn’t matter who these people are beyond the one specific subject Meloy is concentrating on. You know them.

There are a few stand outs. Four Lean Hounds, CA. 1976 presents the awful moment a man discovers his wife has been unfaithful with his now dead best friend. The way it is revealed to him is both subtle and obvious. It’s an excellent piece. Native Sandstone is pretty average by itself but the meaning in it, of wanting to keep to traditional, the status quo, for no real reason, is something to think on. Ranch Girl shows what happens when you let a bad situation control your life, as does, in a different way, Garrison Junction which is interesting in part because the author goes back to the characters in another tale. And then there’s Aqua Boulevard – quite chilling, really – and The Last Of The White Slaves – which doesn’t focus on exactly what you might think.

There are some stories that seem not to be so thought out, with less meaning to them, and so you do find yourself coming down from the literary high on occasion. That said, doubtless which stories work will differ per reader.

Sporting less tight a theme than the later collection, Both Ways Is The Only Way I Want It, you could be forgiven for thinking that Half In Love will not be as good. But if anything it is likely to appeal to more people and could well be said to be better in general.

And given that Half In Love was Meloy’s début, that’s not bad at all.

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Write what you know, having made people tell you about themselves.

Publisher: Pushkin Press
Pages: 335
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-782-227043-0
First Published: 2006
Date Reviewed: 16th October 2014
Rating: 4.5/5

Original language: Finnish
Original title: Lumikko ja yhdeksän muuta (Lumikko and Nine Others)
Translated by: Lola Rogers

Ella Amanda Milana, owner of lovely curved lips and defective ovaries, is a substitute literature and language teacher in Rabbit Back. Whilst the town boasts many writers, only nine have ever made it to Laura White’s Literature Society – but now Ella has been invited to join as the tenth member. Little is known of White, but everyone reads her children’s books. Little is known of the society but the writers are now famous. Nothing is known about the strange goings on in the library wherein the content of books is being changed.

The Rabbit Back Literature Society is a novel in a similar vein, atmospherically, to The Night Circus and The Snow Child and given its complexity, bizarreness, and otherworldliness, comparisons work best when trying to describe it. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why it works, much as it’s difficult to say anything definite about Laura White, but it just does. It’s all rather brilliant. The writing isn’t so brilliant, but as it is a translation one can’t really consider the writing the way they would normally.

There are many elements in this book, many themes, and most answers you have to decide upon for yourself, making the story ripe for discussion. It’s dark, the sort of dark that deliberately tries to hide itself and is all the more dark for it.

It’s probably best to start with what is apparent from the start – this is a book about books, about writing. It is a book for readers in that specific sense, in fact it could be said that the entire book is a plan for a book, for many books. You could in theory, ironically, take ideas from this book for your own, and I would say that this is one of the points. Jääskeläinen looks at the different concepts, the writing process, with a certain honesty than is nevertheless soaked in the strange fantasy world he has constructed. It is thus somewhat satirical.

The author turns the notion of writing what you know on its head. The writers of the Society, these geniuses identified as children, get all their ideas from the other members. A crucial part of the novel is The Game, a somewhat sadistic ritual in which each member may ‘challenge’ another, instructing them to answer a question about themselves or something they likely know about with complete honesty. To spill, as they put it, for fodder for the other’s next book.

So here we are with these ‘geniuses’ who seem to lack inspiration, ideas, and possibly the talent to even form the words. The questions ‘what is talent? What is special?’ are asked on a constant basis. Similar are questions of plagiarism and the extent to which a person should be allowed to write about what they hear. Jääskeläinen cleverly looks at his discussions from various angles, rather as his characters literally look at angles, pulling you along and back and then leaving you to laugh, or to be shocked at where he ends up. What does all of it mean? Are the authors really lacking in their own ideas? Where do ideas come from? And is there a point at which placing people on pedestals, seeing them as untouchable by our inferior selves becomes ridiculous?

And what of children, these young people who White writes for, whom the characters in turn give birth to for the sake of their partners, have but do not love, are incapable of having? Children in general form a large part of the book as Jääskeläinen studies the idea of children from an adult’s viewpoint, a particular viewpoint that conflicts with the wholesome way we are supposed to look at it. It makes you feel sympathetic, it makes you cringe and feel bad for the fictional children, and it makes you think. Detached from the usual emotions that surround the idea of having children, this book really makes you think and it’s really quite uncomfortable.

The theme of the infested, plague-ridden books continues throughout. You are completely on your own for this one, for it is never formally answered. It just continues, words keep being jumbled, stories are changed, and therefore books are burned. A version of a book should never buck the trend of the previous, it should always be the same.

Can you like anyone in Rabbit Back? Similarly to the characters themselves you may find someone you like for a short while before you inevitably end up sitting at a different table. But this book is not about liking people or getting on, and it’s safe to say that Jääskeläinen is using them as much as anyone else. In the hierarchy the author is surely top dog and that is a big part of what makes the book a crack in the fourth wall.

Is it all a metaphor for ideas and writing, a metaphor for story creation and difference? What’s real? See for yourself.

You won’t get any answers, perhaps there aren’t any. But you will have a fantastic few hours studying this book.

I received this book for review from the publisher.

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Time may change, but there will always be that person in a similar situation.

Publisher: Harlequin
Pages: 234
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-460-33836-0
First Published: 1st August 2014
Date Reviewed: 14th October 2014
Rating: 3.5/5

Nick won’t give up, so Grace agrees – an otherwise usual day as a property historian/gallery assistant is changed when Grace accepts the energetic Nick’s proposal that they work together on his commission to discover whether a Victorian architect designed for the Great Exhibition. Grace’s life is ruled by her partner (bed and work) Oliver, and she’s done a good job of pretending she’s happy for nine years, but Nick’s offer, whilst overwhelming, piques her interest. Little is known of Lucas Royde’s career before he became famous, but that might just be about to change.

The Crystal Cage is a dual-plot novel that studies the art world and history but later takes a long look at the expectations people have of each other, especially those less well-off (in all ways), than themselves, to good effect.

None of the characters are likeable, however whether or not they are supposed to be is not obviously stated and so it would be fair to say that if you go into the book knowing that this is the case, you are likely to finish it more content than someone who goes in expecting happiness and romance. Be not ye fooled by the name of the publisher, there is little real romance here and, given the subjects, it is all the better for it.

Lucas, for example, is assuming and takes jealousy to an extreme level. A subtle, non-violent level, but one all the same. The man who is quite obviously in lust rather than love hates his rival from the word ‘go’ with scant reason and it can be hard to feel anything for him when he puts himself in such an awkward and socially unexceptionable position with little behind it that the reader can understand. His ‘romance’ is an interesting one, however, in part because of the way the author does not include any details from the point of view of the woman. Indeed the book would have been too long if she had been given a voice and so it may simply be that she was left out for no literary reason, so to speak, but nevertheless the effect is intriguing. You don’t hear a word from Alessia except through Lucas and therefore it is easy to believe that perhaps she is less in love with him than Lucas thinks, she is certainly more desperate and less powerful than Lucas can comprehend. Their story may be sad, and it may be true as much as the fiction can be, but what is left out ensures that there is a further link in the main social theme.

This theme is of control, the expectations I have stated above. Grace became Oliver’s partner in every sense of the word, but it was/is a case of what Oliver says, goes. He was the lifeline she needed – the security, the job, perhaps even the man in a sexual sense – as long as she was at his beck and call. It is somewhat a spoiler to say this, so you may want to move on to the next paragraph if you’d rather not know too much, but the theme continues somewhat with Nick. Bounding, get-up-and-go Nick, whom Grace likens to Tigger. Whereas Oliver’s persona may have been obvious from the start, at least it would have been if Grace had been less in need, Nick allows the author to show how control can come in different forms. Similarly Alessia is controlled by her reported love for Lucas, and by her husband. It’s interesting to compare the two situations because the contemporary version may hit harder, being closer to home than the Victorian period. But of course both are equally damning.

This all sounds very good, and it is, but this theme consumes the end rather than the main section of the book. The book is overwritten. It’s wordy, flowery, and rather repetitive, with ideas being repeated mere pages after they have already been stated. There is also an element of prolonged angst to it that can be difficult to read. The insistence by Lucas that he’s in love when the reader can see that it is pure lust makes the story difficult to continue.

Nick and Grace are rude. They literally run away from people who had made time for them as soon as they, Nick and Grace, realise the person doesn’t have much information for them. They are well-matched in their lack of tact and in their attitudes to others. Lucas is jealous, as said, hateful of too many, and assumes too much.

The mystery has many, many dead ends, and these are convenient, a way to keep the story going. After a couple of these occasions wherein a search looks promising but is then fruitless, it becomes too predictable and the meetings and searches boring. Then, later, this turns 180 degrees when ideas about Royde appear out of the blue with no ‘evidence’ (for Royde is fictional) behind them. Grace makes guesses that are correct, but they are too much of an assumption without the information the reader has been privy to.

Lastly there are a few names and places that invite confusion, and areas that, other than the filler content, could have used more editing.

Yet the history itself is appealing and there is enough factual information for the interested reader to jump from it into their own research. And the ending itself is highly appropriate and rather excellent. Allingham shows all the worries and backtracking of someone in a difficult situation but writes the ending that you could say is expected. She doesn’t make sweeping changes or include roses on doorsteps – she gives you the realistic truth and has her character remain strong. And she shows that backwards can often be a step forward.

Granted the history works best for the themes of control and independence and less so for the romance. It could be argued that the book would have been better without the Victorian romance, and certainly Grace’s story of discovery is more compelling, but the theme itself makes it all worth it in the end.

The Crystal Cage as a title is exactly what it seems to be, just as relationships often are not. It takes time and yes, effort, to get there, but the book is recommended.

I received this book for review from Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours.

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A leopard can/can’t change its spots – delete as applicable.

Publisher: Sphere (Little Brown)
Pages: 376
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-751-54136-6
First published: 1992
Date Reviewed: 28th September 2014
Rating: 4/5

Renard has been in Antioch for a good few years, and as those years draw to an end he meets Olwen. He’s had dancing girls before, but Olwen sets him on fire and when she tells him she’s pregnant and needs to return with him, he allows it as his betrothed at home does not interest him. But Olwen’s after power as always, and when Renard finds he does like Elene, she moves on to his rival – a man who wants Renard’s lands far more than he wants to fight in the war between Stephen and Matilda.

The Leopard Unleashed is a solid offering from Chadwick, the last of her purely fictional works (the others being The Wild Hunt and The Running Vixen) with a story that may not have you staying up all night but will definitely have you reading until the end.

The editing isn’t so good; there are the usual errors and the usual sudden leaps in time that can be disappointing, however in this case they are particularly disappointing because they come at times such as a major disagreement or where an illustration of chemistry is needed. Instead of a continuation the issues are worked out off the page with simply a sentence or two to summarise and whilst in the case of Renard and Olwen’s affair it later makes sense, other times it does not.

This said the structure of the story overall is good. This book is one in which Chadwick concludes the story at the end of the story (sometimes books are continued passed their natural conclusion) and the balance between war and romance works well. Whilst Chadwick writes excellent scenes in the bedroom that for the most part further the development of the characters, The Leopard Unleashed contains few but still manages to show the characters well. The book is shorter for it, and it could be said that the structure is better, too. The book is certainly a romance but the rivalry strong. This doesn’t mean everything is clear, however – you will need to keep your wits about you as you read, not only because there are a few names repeated but because there are a few battles fought, numerous occasions where the men are waiting for war or entrenched in war, and there are various reasons for all of them. Indeed Chadwick’s book offers the reader a good reminder that whilst the royals might have been fighting for the kingdom, and their subjects chose sides and fought with them, as always local feuds can be more important.

As always, as expected, the characters are extremely well written and development. If Chadwick wants you to feel for a character you will, and she provides enough narrative for the rivals that whilst you won’t be able to say they are particularly good people, you can see how with a simple switch of view, the story could just as well have been able them. Chadwick suggests who is good and who is bad, but reminds you that it’s not quite as simple as that when heritage, proclamations, and royalty are concerned. Also as expected, the chemistry is excellent, the dialogue fun, informative, and believable, and the historical details abundant. Being about a fictional family, you know much of the history is made up, simply woven into the factual history, but (or ‘and’, depending on your thoughts) it doesn’t matter a jot.

The book may not be thrilling as, for example, the later Lords Of The White Castle that aimed for the reader to be riding full pelt with the horses, but there is a whole lot to like in The Leopard Unleashed.

Yet despite the pace still, when unleashed, the leopard bites, and feel free to read into this statement both the expected might of war and innuendo because both are intended. It’s not going to be your favourite Chadwick, but you’re going to have a whale of a time regardless, forget the fact that there are no whales in the book.

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