"White Rose Rebel" by Janet Paisley

(Penguin, 2007)

Anne Farquharson was a Highland woman who fought to free her land from the harsh rule of the English. She knew she couldn’t live in their world, which King George was slowly enforcing onto her country. The English stifled their women and cared nothing for traditions. Anne did not want to become a meek and submissive woman. She did not want to have no say in how her clan was run. Neither did she want to lose her culture. So when Bonnie Prince Charlie sails from France to reclaim the Scottish throne, there was no hesitation for Anne. She rose up with him.

 

That was not the case for her husband, Aeneas. Their marriage was a fiery one, built on passion. There seemed to be no room for love, for when Anne gathered her clan, he joined the Black Watch. They argued. They fought. And through many misunderstandings, Anne went back to her first love, Alexander MacGillivray. But Aeneas did love her. Still, they ended up on opposite sides of the field in a battle between the Jacobites and the English, sometimes at the end of the other’s pistol.

 

The book was an entertaining read for the first part. It was a bit of a romp in the hay at times, but the sex didn’t really bother me. Looking at other reviews of this book, this seemed to be a problem for some people. Maybe it was gratuitous, who am I to say, but Anne was young. That’s what young people do. They have crazy libido. In any case, there was a bit of political intrigue there, too. There were the English antagonists, betting on how long it would take to stop the rebellion, being surprised when it wasn’t so easy, and being damn brutal. Which brings me to the second part.

 

The second part of the book, more towards the end really, was very depressing (Culloden – if you are even a little familiar with Scottish history I’m guessing you know what that battle meant). Janet Paisely mentions the word genocide in the afterword, and this really seems to be the case here. It was a little gruesome. It was very frustrating. I wished I could somehow get Connor from Assassin’s Creed III to come out and deal with the redcoats. But I couldn’t, so I just kept reading. The end didn’t completely satisfy me.

 

Despite that, I did like the book. It was engrossing. I enjoyed the characters, even if they were a little bit cliché. They had personality, which doesn’t make sense after what I just said but trust me it does. MacGillivray was probably my favorite. I’m not sure how much of the history was true and how much was made up, but I did learn something. I hadn’t really been familiar with Scottish history in the 18^th century or the clan system either.

 

I wish I knew how to pronounce the Gaelic words tossed around and at least there is a translation that goes along with it on the page or in the back of the book. There was a bit of French thrown around too, which for people who don’t understand might make them scratch their head, but it’s not a lot and easy to guess the gist if you don’t understand.

 

My rating: 4/5

 

For another great book set in Scotland, but in an earlier time period, check out Jules Watson’s Dalriada trilogy. I highly recommend this series.

"Graceling" by Kristin Cashore

(Graphia, 2008)

I’d heard about Graceling through the Internet. It sounded like an interesting book, something I might have read when I was a teenager. And that right there was my problem. Something a teenager would read. There was no way I was going to go to the young adult section of the bookstore, by myself, to pick this up. I know many adults read young adult, but I felt ridiculous at the thought of finding myself in that part of the bookstore. I don’t know, for me it would just be weird (no offense to anyone here). Then came the solution.

One day, my fifteen year old niece asked me to take her to the bookstore. Holy hell! I didn’t know she liked to read or write. It’s a recent occurrence, apparently. I was so proud, so happy that she’s into books now. So I strolled through the young adult section with her, perusing the many paranormal teen love triangles and giggling at many a cover. And then I saw Graceling. I had forgotten it by that time, but I picked it up anyway and decided to buy it – it wouldn’t look so weird among all the other young adult  books I was buying for my niece (I’m sure the Bernard Cornwell book I also bought for myself looked a little out of place that day).

It’s been a while since I read young adult. Actually, I can’t say that I ever really read much young adult. I seem to have gone from middle grade to Fear Street and Christopher Pike books straight into adult fiction, with Harley, like a person being the only normal young adult book I remember reading (and loving). I don’t know what I was expecting with Graceling, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Okay, so enough rambling, onto the actual review now.

Katsa is the niece of King Randa. She is a Graceling. These are a special few people who are Graced with certain abiltities and have two different eye colors to show it. Some Graces are pretty useless, and the king of that person’s particular kingdom (there are seven in this fantasy world that we know of) will leave those alone. Others, like Katsa, are more useful, very useful even, and the king has the right to take these people under his command. Katsa is graced with fighting. She’s her uncle’s thug, beating and killing at his command. She hates this, but feels like there’s nothing she could do about it. To make up for this disgusting life she leads, she started a Council. This Council does covert operations that undermine not only Randa but the other six kings as well. It is during one of these operations that she meets Po, a Lienid prince who will change everything for Katsa.

Po is also a Graceling. He is searching for his grandfather, Tealiff, whom Katsa had rescued from another king’s keeping. This kidnapping is a big mystery to Po and he knew Katsa had rescued Tealiff from harm. Katsa doesn’t really trust Po at first because he is also a Graceling but there is something more to him that she can’t quite put a finger to. They become friends, eventually, something which is hard for Katsa to do, and Katsa gains the courage to finally break free from Randa’s control. Only, it’s one of those out of the frying pan and into the fire scenarios, for on their way to investigate King Leck of Monsea, whom they think had something to do with Tealiff’s kidnapping, things get very dire.

All in all, I think this book was very creative and original. I liked the idea of people being Graced. It was interesting to read. The writing was well done. Katsa was a pretty believable character. However, I find that my interest waned in the middle of the book and I kind of got bored. I thought King Leck as a villain could have been fleshed out a little more. We never really see him and when we do we just see a maniac. We don’t get to find out why he’s like that, what he really wants with his daughter Bitterblue (thought its obviously something very disgusting), and how he managed to hide, well, what he was hiding all that time. And the ending… I was expecting an epic battle instead we just get a dagger throw (hidden spoiler). It was a little disappointing. Oh well.

I liked this book but sometimes I was just “meh”. So, once again I’m not sure where I stand on a book. But I’m going to be a little more generous than I usually am. I guess, in the end, I am glad that I purchased the book. It was something different from what I usually read and something closer to what I write ( thus I guess you could say it was something of a learning experience).

Final verdict: 4/5

"The Red Scarf" by Kate Furnivall

(Berkley, 2008)

You might have heard of the labour camps Soviet Russia used to send its own citizens to (gulags). How hard they worked the prisoners and how inhumane they were. The Red Scarf tells a fictional story of Sofia, a young woman sent to one of these camps. She is forced, along with other undernourished women who have been declared enemies of the people for one reason or other, to build a railroad in Siberia. While there, she develops a friendship with Anna, once the daughter of a successful doctor in Leningrad. Anna keeps things lively with her tales of her childhood, and her childhood love, Vasily. In return, Sofia keeps a close guard on Anna, helping her through blizzards and staving off leering guards. She also helps Anna keep her strength up. A strength which is rapidly declining. Knowing her friend will not survive for much longer in the camp, Sofia plans an escape. And against all odds it is successful.

Sofia heads to a small, rural town called Tivil. She had promised Anna that was where she would go, because Anna told her that was where Vasily was hiding out, with a different name and a different identity. When she finally reaches Tivil, she finds a man who matches closely with Anna’s descriptions of Vasily. She gets to know him, placing herself in his life, and surprise, surprise, finds herself falling in love with the guy. She knows this is a betrayal of Anna, but she knows it could save her friend’s life as well.

Along the way, Sofia meets other characters; the gypsy Rafik and his daughter Zenia, the chairman of the collective farm Aleksei Fomenko, the stern schoolteacher Elizaveta Lishnikova, and a few others who will either help her in her quest or hinder her. There is also a hint of magical realism in this story. The gypsy has strange powers, something Sofia catches on to, but really can’t explain. It is all connected to her.

The book does a good job, I think, in bringing back to light that horrible time in Soviet Russia’s history. Stalin’s rule was a hard one. Nobody trusted each other. One whisper about you or from you reaching the wrong ears and you could find yourself declared an enemy of the people. Propaganda was rampant and it almost seemed as if everyone was brainwashed, a thing this book plays on well, in for example, Pyotr’s continued confusion as to whether or not everything he had been told was in fact the right thing. He is constantly torn between being a good citizen and doing what is right.

One thing that did annoy me was the fact that Sofia doesn’t even bother to change her name. You’d think an escaped enemy of the state would want to change their name to keep from being detected, but I guess it’s not that big of a deal in the end. I mean, it’s not like the OGPU had google or computer databases to cross reference names and stuff. Yet, Vasily did change his name. Anyway, that’s just a minor gripe (I’m nitpicking, I know, I’ll stop… soon).

Another thing I did not really care for in this story, was the whole gypsy powers and mind reading sort of magical realism. I think it would have been a great story without that gimmick. There’s enough drama and tension in Stalin’s Russia to go around without weaving mystical powers into it. That is just a personal opinion though. I don’t generally enjoy it when that sort of stuff pops up into historical fiction. Its fine in fantasy but not in historical fiction.

One more thing that sort of bothered me was the constant flashbacks. They were done well in that I was never confused that it was a flashback, but at times I just wanted the main storyline to go on and not to hear another story about Vasily and Anna rowing on the lake. I guess they were important to the story, so I am fine with them.

All in all, I was interested enough in this story. It took me a while to read through, even so. I guess I liked it, but was not in love with it. It’s hard to say where I stand on this book. I liked the history in it; Kate Furnivall clearly invested a lot of research in it. The story was all right, though a little farfetched at times (how many people actually escaped those camps? I’m not sure, but perhaps not a lot). There was a hook that had me turning pages furiously, but unfortunately it comes more towards the second half of the book. And as to that hook, I just have to say: I knew it.

So, I would recommend this book to people who have an interest in Russian history and to those people who enjoy a dose of magical realism to what they’re reading (seventh son of a seventh son kind of magic).

The final verdict: 3/5

·         See The Whisperers by Orlando Figes for an historical study of that time period, with harrowing and true tales of Stalin’s injustices.

·         The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons is another historical fiction piece set in Stalin’s Russia, but during the Second World War. It also features secrets and a grand love story. Tatiana & Alexander, the sequel, is also worth a read.

"The Divining" by Barbara Wood



(Turner Publishing, 2012)

Ulrika has a gift. Visions and dreams of the future come to her. In the beginning, they frighten her and she cannot control them. It is more a curse than a blessing. When she finally gathers enough courage to tell her mother of what ails her, the world as she knows it gets tossed upside down. She learns that her father is in fact alive and that he had left her and her mother for his homeland in Germania. Her gift is from his bloodline. Ulrika decides that she needs answers. So she sets out on a journey of discovery.

 

Throughout her long journey of discovery in which she travels from the forests of Germania to the deserts outside of Babylon, she meets people who help her harness her gift and understand her place in the world. And at the very beginning of the journey, she meets a man, Sebastianus Gallus, who will also change her life forever. The Roman trader is on his own personal journey – to China. Their two paths intertwine and diverge but ultimately converge.

 

This is an interesting coming of age story set in the time of the Roman Empire during the reign of Emperor Nero. The characters that fill these pages are truly fascinating; from Timonides the Greek astrologer and his simple minded son Nestor, to Primo the battle hardened veteran of the Roman legion, to Rachel the widow living alone in a desert oasis. The settings are rich with description, from the caravan camp to Luoyang, and it is easy to tell that Barbara Wood weaved a lot of research into her story.

 

I only wish that some sort of historical note had been included in the end of the book. I haven’t been to Sunday school in a very long time, but I had a feeling that Rachel and then Judah might have been the same from the Bible. This is only made sort of clear at the end of the book. I am still not sure if these characters and perhaps others are based on historical figures (well, I know Nero was real – student of the Classics here). Shame on me, I guess, for not knowing my Bible well enough. And I had previously read about possible trade caravans from Rome going to China, but I don’t know how much of this actually happened. Again, a historical note at the end would have been a bonus.

 

In any case, I did enjoy this book. It was an interesting story. However, sometimes I felt like I didn’t care what happened to the characters. I just didn’t feel for them. Perhaps it was the way it was written – sometimes it read like a history text book. I am all for this, being a lover of history, but I also love to escape into an adventurous tale. I found the love story a little too shallow. Ulrika and Sebastianus seemed to fall in love on the spot. And they continued to love each other after being separated for a long time and did not question each other’s loyalty throughout those years. It was a tad unrealistic. All in all, I think this book fell a little short for me. I would, however, recommend it to fans of Roman history.

 

The final verdict: 3/5