Review: A Cottage by the Sea by Ciji Ware

A Cottage by the Sea by Ciji Ware is an edge of your seat romance with a big mystery and a little bit of magic too.  Blythe, a big production designer in Hollywood, has just gone through nasty divorce with her husband, a super famous movie director.  Feeling the need to get away from the press and the people she thought were her friends, Blythe decides to travel to Cornwall for an indefinitely long vacation.  She finds the perfect location-a little artist's cottage on a large manor estate.  It's near the area where her grandmother always said their family was from.  Once settled in, Blythe meets the charming Lucas Teague, manor owner.  A friendship develops, but so does Blythe's curiousity.  She begins to have visions of the manor's past inhabitants.  Are these are ancestors trying to tell her the family's secret?  As Blythe struggles to find some answers, she also struggles with her growing feelings for Luke and the project they have started together.

To be honest, I thought this book was going to be one of those super lame romances.  But it's not lame, and it's so much more than just a love story.  Blythe is trying to heal after being hurt by her ex-husband and her family.  Luke is also attempting to heal from his past and build a better relationship with his son.  The story was captivating and I loved it.

The setting couldn't have been more perfect, too.  Ciji Ware paints a gorgeous countryside in Cornwall and makes you wish that you could escape from your hectic life with Blythe.  The characters who resided in Cornwall seemed to really capture life there. 

And oh the characters.  I loved Blythe because she is a famous woman who should be totally confident in herself, but she struggles with her self-image just like the rest of us.  The "smaller" characters, like the housekeeper and the gardener, reminded me of my grandparents, so it made sense when Blythe wanted to spend time with them.  And then there's Luke.  Beautiful, talkative, charming, yet flawed Luke.  So it's no secret that on occasion I fall madly in love with a character in a book (it happened last year when I read Cornelia Funke's Reckless).  And I feel head over heels for Lucas Teague.  He is a funny guy who loves to joke around and make light of things.  But he also has a tender heart and deep emotional wounds that sometimes show through.  And he has a temper too, but not a bad one.  *sigh*  Just read the book.  I'm ready to read it all over again just to read about Luke again!

So don't be ashamed of your literary crushes, and read this book.  And enjoy it.  And let me know what you think of Luke.  I'm willing to share him ;)


Title: A Cottage by the Sea
Author: Ciji Ware
Date of Publication: 1997 (my copy is from 2010)
Number of Pages: 522
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal Copy (gift from little sister for Christmas 2010!)

Review: Lord of the Far Island by Victoria Holt

Ellen Kellaway has lived her whole life through the charity of others and her aunt never lets her forget it.  Her mother is dead and she hasn't seen her father since she was a baby.  Ellen is spunky, smart, and talkative, so when she realizes that she's going to be forced to be a governess, she feels like her freedom is running out.  Then as luck would have it, she finds a way out through marriage to a wealthy young man she has known all her life.  However, Ellen starts to feel doubtful about her choice in a husband.  Then Ellen gets a letter from her father's family.  They want her to come live with them on a remote island off of England's coast.  Ellen jumps at the chance.  Once there though, she can't shake the feeling that something terrible is going to happen.  Someone wants her dead, but who?

While I enjoyed the first Victoria Holt novel I read, The Bride of Pendorric, I really enjoyed Lord of the Far Island.  I got into the story right away and read it quickly.  I felt that the relationship that Ellen developes in this book is so much more believable than Favel's relationship with Roc.  She knows the man for a while and can really develope feelings for him.  It feels more real.  The story was a bit predictable and ran a bit like the Pendorric book, but the development of the relationship as well as the main character herself made the story so much better.  This story, and even its ending, seemed so much more natural.  I also prefered Ellen over Favel.  She is more likeable.  She doesn't just fall in love with the first man who swoons over her.  Ellen is intelligent, witty, and opinionated, and likes it to be known.  She is very adventurous and can stand on her own two feet.  My kind of gal if you know what I mean.  I liked Favel in the Pendorric book, but she got on my nerves at times because of her dependence on her husband.

I loved the characters and the setting.  Holt is able to mesh a scary gothic-esque setting with a beautiful setting.  Ellen loves the house and the island because of its beauty but it can also seem foreboding at times because of its isolation.  The characters were extremely well written.  Slack was my personal favorite.  The villagers call him "dumb", but he is so kind and actually very smart.  He is brilliant with birds and soon becomes a close friend of Ellen.  Holt makes certain characters suspicious to both Ellen and the reader because of subtle little details.  The way a person responds to a question or comment, or certain circumstances that are hinted at before something bad happens, makes you start suspecting characters that you thought were good.  Unlike the Pendorric book, I had no idea in Lord of the Far Island what was going on or who was up to no good.  Bride of Pendorric was suspenseful, but this book was even more so. 

I definitely recommend this book.  If you read the Pendorric book and weren't super fond of it, you should read Lord of the Far Island.  It can be predictable if you've read the other one, but not so predictable that you can't enjoy it and guess what's going to happen. 

And now some favorite quotes to showcase Victoria Holt's fabulous writing:
Page 40: I tried not to think about it, but my habit of thrusting aside the unpleasant and deluding myself into the belief that it would never happen was not quite so successful as usual.
Page 156: When a house has stood for seven hundred years much must have happened within its walls.  If those stones could speak what tales they would have to tell!  And in houses such as this there would have been gaiety and sorrow, comedy and tragedy.  I have the feeling sometimes that these emotions have been captured and held within stone walls and that there are times when they cannot keep them secret.

Title: Lord of the Far Island
Author: Victoria Holt
Date of Publication: 1975 (original)
Number of Pages: 336
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Romance
Source: Personal Copy

Computer Woes

I hate viruses.  The computer kind, I mean.  One minute, you're vegging out in front of your laptop browsing some translation blogs, next thing you know, a big red box pops up on your screen telling you that you have a bad virus and that you better click it to get rid of the culprit.  But you've had this sucker before so you know that clicking on the red box is a bad idea.  You think, "well, maybe it'll go away since I didn't click this time....".  But then you realize that there's a new program called "Security Protection" on your desktop and you get pissed.  Super duper pissed.  They've done it again.  And this time you didn't even click.  And this time you can't even get the internet to stay open for a minute before it closes.  This virus is smart.  It knows that you have the key to its defeat.  The catch is that you have to get to the ultimate geek message board (techspot.com) to download the custom-made killer of this virus.  So now you're stuck.  What do you do?  What any normal semi-computer-literate gal would do.  You disconnect your internet connection in the hopes that the virus won't spread.  And then you shut down your computer for a few hours or days, until you've regained some composure and are ready to fight back with all you've got.  Even if that means calling Dell support and paying $80 for them to remove the virus remotely.  Hey, whatever works.

Mini Review: What is Left the Daughter by Howard Norman

Not much time for writing my usual long reviews because I've been caring a lot for my grandma on the weekends, so this is kind of a mini review with a summary and quick review.

Howard Norman's What is Left the Daughter takes place during World War II in Canada.  Wyatt's parents have just commited suicide.  Same day, different locations.  He goes to live with his aunt, uncle, and their adopted daughter Tilda.  There in a small town named Middle Economy, he meets a young German student who will end up changing Wyatt's life for forever.  This is a really moving book with a fantastic setting.

I love all things U-boats.  It's a weird obsession, but it is what it is.  So I adored all the U-boat aspects of this book.  During WWII, their were U-boats (German submarines) right off the east coast of Canada and the USA, and this book pretty much revolves around that. 

Wyatt is a great narrator.  He is awkward and stupid at times, and at others he is very vulnerable.  I can't say I liked his character, but I was able to simpathize with him, even after he makes some really awful decisions. 

The setting of the book, to me, was awesome.  I live right on the border of Canada and the USA and I loved reading a book set in Canada.  I also adored all the references to my city, Buffalo.  What's better is that my grandmothers both remember the exact radio show that was broadcast out of Buffalo and mentioned numerous times in this book.  I thought Norman did a really great job of setting the scene of small town Canada during the war.  His writing is really good and descriptive.

Honestly, while I was reading this book, I just liked it.  I was enjoying it a lot, but I didn't really know what to think through most of it.  After I finished it, though, I realized just how awesome it is.  I thought this would be one of those books that you read and then forget about.  Instead, I found myself thinking back on this book and it's story and characters weeks after I'd finished it.  I'm still a bit "haunted" by certain parts of it, and it's things like this that make a book really great in my opinion.  I definitely recommend you read What is Left the Daughter.  It might seem slow at times, but it's a very powerful story.

Some favorite quotes (which there were a lot of.  I've tried narrowing it down!):
Page 72: At one point, not looking up from the sweater she was folding, she said, "Donald's moved to the shed.  Outwardly, I'm trying to be poised about it."
Page 75: "It's a work of art, your packing," I said.
"I've left a little extra room," she said.  "One should always leave a little room for a new purchase.  I don't count on making a new purchase, but just in case."
Page 81: "Don't sell yourself short," she said.  "The way I see it?  A poem reaches out exactly halfway, then you reach out halfway, then see what happens."
"Provisional, eh?"
"I only mean if you're thinking willful and generous toward a poem, the poem'll be equally those things back.  As for meaning, it'll mean something different to each person.  That's all you have to know."
Page 202 (I threw in the Buffalo line following this quote because I wanted to.): Life went along, Marlais.  Life just goes along.  I'm never late for work.  Never late, that's one thing.  The other is that every Sunday I listen to the Cavalcade of Radio programs.  I tune it in from Buffalo.

Title: What is Left the Daughter
Author: Howard Norman
Date of Publication: 2010
Number of Pages: 264
Genre: Fiction
Source: Personal Copy

Review: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Murder on the Orient Express is a gripping murder mystery with a surprising ending.  Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is traveling by train through Europe.  It is snowing hard, and the train has to stop on the tracks for a few days in the middle of nowhere until it can get past the snow.  While stopped, a gruesome murder takes place.  Who stabbed wealthy American Mr. Ratchett twelve times?  It has to be someone in the same car, yet no witnesses have come forward.  Poirot takes it upon himself to solve the murder and interviews and studies all of the passengers.  Will he catch the murderer?

I really enjoyed Murder on the Orient Express.  It's been years since I've read anything by Agatha Christie, and this was my first Poirot story.  I couldn't put the book down because I was so engrossed.  I was worried when I picked it up that I might get bored.  After all, the entire story takes place on a train.  However, Poirot is such an intriguing character and asks the suspects really interesting questions.  I could not for the life of me discover who murdered Mr. Ratchett until Poirot revealed it.

I really love Christie's writing.  I love a good mystery and crime novel, but often I find that the story undermines the writing.  I can let this slide sometimes if the story is really awesome, but thankfully Christie didn't allow that to happen.  Even though the story is really what makes the book, the writing is excellent and isn't just tossed on the wayside.

Agatha Christie really is one of a kind.  I've never read a story like hers by another author.  She is able to weave a web of characters, lies, and half-truths that create the ultimate murder mystery.  Murder on the Orient Express was genius in my opinion and I adore Poirot.  I'll be reviewing another Poirot mystery in a few weeks.  I can't wait to read more from the queen of murder mysteries :)

Title: Murder on the Orient Express
Author: Agatha Christie
Date of Publication: First Publication was 1934, my copy is 2011
Number of Pages: 315
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Source: Personal Copy

Ahh the temptation..

It's bad.  It's very bad.  There is a certain French website kind of like Amazon that I use to order all of my books from France that I can't find here or on Amazon.ca (or if I don't like the price from Amazon.ca...).  It's called fnac.com and a teacher of mine at Buffalo State College introduced me to it.  I heart it.  I can get paperbacks for like 4 or 5 euros and ship them to the states.  Shipping is based on weight and usually is just about double the book's  price.  It seems like it would be a lot, but it's not because France has so many affordable "poche" books out there (our trade paperbacks are similar).  So once a year, I do a big order of a bunch of books.  I usually wait until around Octobr or November.  But I want my books now.  You see, dear readers, I've read all the books I bought last year.  The only French book I have to read until the end of the year is Zola's Au bonheur des dames.  And the thought of me finishing it and having NO books en français is pretty horrifying.

Now the catch is that much of France is on holiday for the month of August.  If I place my order right at this very instant like I soooo want to do, my books probably won't even ship until September.  Trust me.  I once ordered books for school from fnac.com in August like my teacher told us to.  And then the next day she was freaking out like, "OHMYGOSH did I have you guys order from fnac??  In August??!"  It took over a month to get our books.  Usually when I order from them, the goods come like within a week.  So I guess I could order my books now and I won't be charged until September..  Or I could wait until October or November.  Or until I have a new job.  But then it's like, maybe I should buy my books before I have to start paying those pesky student loans??  And before I change my car over to my own name and have to start making my own car insurance payments every month without the help of my mom (thanks Mom!). 

I guess I'll wait. 

Review: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

I rarely ever read short story collections, which is probably why this review is so hard for me to write.  I can't possible summarize and review every story in it.  So I will try and do a basic "this is the general jist of it" sort of thing.  I absolutely adored Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies and all the stories in it.  But I want to review it without telling too much about each story..

Interpreter of Maladies contains nine stories that have one thing in common: love.  The kind of love is different though.  Lost love, forbidden love, the loss of love, growing to love someone.  And each story is powerful yet subtle in its own way.  These are quiet stories about relationships, their beginnings, and their ends.

Most of the characters are either from India or have parents from India.  In many of the stories, I got a strong sense of homesickness.  The characters live for the most part in the United States, far from the country they or their families were born and raised in.  The characters were living in a different culture from what they or their parents were raised in.  However, thhose characters were also trying to hold on to what they could of their culture.

Lahiri's writing flowed beautifully and left me wanting more.  It's understated yet eloquent, and I constantly found myself rereading passages becase of th way they were written. 

So that's my first ever attempt at reviewing a short story collection (I think..).  I hope I expressed why I loved Interpreter of Maladies so much and why i can't wait to read more of Lahiri.  I'm so glad I signed up for the South Asian Challenge this year because otherwise I may have put off reading this gem for years.

A few favorite passages:
Page 19: Something happened when the house was dark.  they were able to talk to each other again.  The third night after supper they'd sat together on the sofa, and once it was dark he began kissing her awkwardly on her forehead and her face, and though it was dark he closed his eyes, and he knew that she did, too.
Page 127: In November came a series of days when Mrs. Sen refused to practice driving.  The blade never emerged from the cupboard, newspapers were not spread on the floor.  She did not call the fish store, nor did she thaw chicken.  In silence she prepared crackers with peanut butter for Eliot, then sat reading old aerograms from a shoebox.  When it was time for Eliot to leave she gathered together his things without inviting his mother to sit on the sofa and eat something first.  When, eventually, his mother asked him in the car if he'd noticed a change in Mrs. Sen's behavior, he said he hadn't.  He didn't tell her that Mrs. Sen paced the apartment, staring at the plastic lampshades as if noticing them for the first time....

Title: Interpreter of Maladies
Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Date of Publication: 1999
Number of Pages: 198
Genre: Fiction, short stories
Source: Personal Copy

Review: Before Ever After by Samantha Sotto

Samantha Sotto's Before Ever After is a magical story about love, loss, and making the ultimate sacrifice for the person you love.  Shelley is still devastated by the sudden death of her husband Max three years earlier when she has an unexpected visitor.  A young Italian man named Paolo shows her photos of his grandfather, and when Shelley looks at the photos, it's Max she sees.  The catch?  There's no way Max could have been Paolo's grandpa because her Max was not that old.  But why then does the man in the photos never seem to age?  When Shelley and Paolo set off on a journey to try to solve the puzzle, Shelley reminisces about how she and Max met and the stories he told that might unveil the truth about her husband.  Is Max still alive and immortal?  Shelley hopes (and fears) that she might find him and finally know the truth.

Before Ever After is a beautiful love story.  It flips between the present and Shelley's memories of the group tour she took through Europe where she met Max.  The stories he told the group at the time seemed like just that, but now Shelley is picking up pieces of who Max really is by remembering the stories.  The book was really easy to follow and the flipflopping flowed well.

Sotto is a great writer.  She captures Shelley's emotions so well that I could really feel her grief when Max died.  I could also feel her disbelief and later her acceptance when she was shown Paolo's photos and started wondering who Max really was. 

The flashbacks to Max's stories were my favorite part because they are so vivid and the history of each location and time are really brought to life by Sotto's descriptions.  I also learned a little about French history.  I looked it up, and "The Bloody Week" of Paris in 1871 that is described in the book really did happen.  Info is here.  I can't believe that I never heard of this major event in French history, having a French degree and taking countless numbers of French history classes and all that.  You learn something new every day! 

I'd recommend Before Ever After to anyone who loves a good timeless love story that makes you feel all warm and happy inside, and to anyone who also loves good writing.  Let me know your thoughts if you've read it, or if you plan on reading it!  It is a truly enchanting story and it made me want to go back to Europe!

Before Ever After by Samantha Sotto is out today, August 2nd, through the Crown Publishing Group!  Get your copy today :)

Now some favorite quotes:
Page 83: Shelley had first come to the conclusion that age was a sound when she went hunting for a place after she first moved to London....
Page 230: "I know there's no magical potion to preserve my life or Sheila's," Dex said, still holding on to Shelley's hand.  "And I know that the time will come when her voice won't be as crystal clear in my head.  But even when every detail has dulled, I know that I'll always have something that not even time can take away.  Pain."
Shelley's hand stiffened against Dex's palm.  "And that's a good thing?"
"Yes, because when I've forgotten everything else, I'll feel that ache...that tightness in my throat...that heaviness in my chest...and know that I loved a woman once and she loved me back.  It's proof that I existed and so did she."


Title: Before Ever After
Author: Samantha Sotto (@samanthasotto on twitter)
Date of Publication: August 2nd, 2011
Number of Pages: 294
Genre: Fiction
Source: ARC from Publisher