REVIEW: WATER FOR ELEPHANTS BY SARA GRUEN

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial Canada; 1st Trade edition (Mar 29 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0006391559

This book has been sitting on my shelf for a few years, and like I said before, I thought it was one of those books where the animals talk and that they are the main characters.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I have to be in a certain frame of mind to read a book like that and suffice it to say, it never happened.  Once I started to see trailers of the movie, though, I started to hear phrases like, "love story" and words like "romantic" and thought, "Huh?"  My husband read it a couple of years back and he liked it so I picked it up and am I ever glad I did!  

First of all Sara Gruen is Canadian (well, technically a dual US/Canadian) , WOOT!  Love it.  Secondly she is a mom that as dreamed of being a writer her whole life and her finally her husband said to her, "Let's take a year or two of you being at home and you write a book."  How awesome is that?    And apparently this book also had its start in the NanoWrimo competition, although I cannot find any other source that verifies that other than the Wrimo.  The NanoWrimo is a fun competition for no money where people attempt to write a novel in 30 days.  On their website they say that Sara's novel was one.  Pretty cool, if it's true!

Okay, so the first few pages sucked me in when I realized that it was not animals talking, but people and the beginning was a bit mysterious with the menagerie of animals going crazy and a window into the world of the circus circa 1920's.  I love historical fiction, and there were actual pictures from circus archives at the beginning of each chapter, what a nice touch!  I have to admit I did picture Robert Pattison as the young Jacob, which didn't bother me too much, and I couldn't remember who was playing the lead in the movie which is just as well as I'm not the biggest fan of Reese Witherspoon... you know, the chin that never stops growing.  ANYway.  

The book is anchored in present day with my favourite and most developed character, in my opinion, the "92 or 93" year old Jacob in a nursing home.  He was just the right amount of cranky, sad, melancholy and spitfire to make me fall in love with him.  I loved seeing the world through his eyes, and I am always blown away when authors can take opposite sex characters and completely nail them, not to mention characters that are about 60 years older than them!  I loved him, and there were several scenes in the book that were so beautifully heartbreaking, and took place just with him and his own reflection.  Makes me realize what getting old really means. 

Sara manages to seamlessly time travel between old Jacob in the seniors home and young Jacob trying to make sense of his life as he stumbles upon a circus with all of its animals, freaks, and tyrant of an owner Uncle Al, and his manager August who just happens to be crazy and also happens to be married to gorgeous Marlena who does the Spirit act with the horses in her sequenced little dresses.  

As per usual I do not want to give anything away, so I will not do a summary, it is easy to find that anywhere on the web.  But I will give you my thoughts in general about this book. 

It is fascinating, if you like history being fleshed out in a realistic way.  It is beautiful, you can imagine the clothing of the era, the decadence of the state car on the train.  It is gritty, with the roustabouts and their cramped quarters on the train.  It is swoony, when unrequited live rears its lovely head.  It is heart breaking, when we meet Rosie the elephant and fall in love with her as so many before her had.  There is adventure and tension. And pairing the narrative in the present day with old Jacob being agitated by another old gentleman at the home telling everyone he used to bring water for the elephants, we are drawn in by curiosity just as to why old Jacob is so completely fired up about this man and his claims. 

The only criticism I have of the book is that there are a couple of characters, one in particular, that developed in an odd fashion and it annoyed me throughout the novel.  Kinko/Walter is the dwarf who is forced to share his already cramped train car with Jacob and I loved his grumpy, bitter, vibe and how he just was so irritated with Jacob's very presence.  He had this adorable little dog named Queenie, who you could just see was his only true friend in the world.  Well, somehow as the story progressed, and rather quickly I might add, Walter become really really "nice".  Like freakishly nice, in a weird way that even most men today wouldn't be.  All of the sudden he was all nurturing and comforting to Jacob, and it just didnt' make any sense.  His character just disappeared, and that goes with Grady another worker who was just "nice" in a boring way, and except for the name they came across in an identical way with no real voice of their own.  Kinko was cool, at first, an unusual guy who had a very unique "voice", if you know what I mean.  I just don't understand what happened there.  

Otherwise a very fast lovely read, and once I see the movie I'll come back on there and do a bit of a Book to Movie post, I am dying to see how they do it!

Sara has a new book out called Ape House which I would love to read.  And as is my way, I purposefully avoid too much information about a book I want to read, but it's something about great apes communicating through sign language?  I think the story revolves around a researcher on the subject?  Not sure, but I have the sample downloaded on my Kindle and can't wait to read it.  

But back to Water?  

RATING:  4.5/5

For more on Sara and her works click here. 

REVIEW: THE SECRET ELEANOR BY CECELIA HOLLAND

The Secret Eleanor by Cecelia Holland

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Berkley Trade; 1 edition (August 3, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780425234501

Firstly I want to send a HUGE THANK YOU to Berkley Publishing Group for sending me a copy of this book an embarrassingly long time ago.  Better late than never I always say. (cough)

Now, the first thing I will say about this book which should tell you my feelings about it is... I LITERALLY closed the cover about a minute and a half ago and RAN to my laptop because I COULD NOT WAIT to tell you HOW MUCH I FRIGGEN LOVED IT!!!!!!!!!!!  

You all know by now that I love historical fiction, I mean I love other genres too, but this is my favourite fo sho.  I happen to wish I lived in the medieval times.  Oh I know what your going to say, "Lisa, that time period stunk.  I mean LITERALLY stunk.  People didn't bathe, rarely had teeth, women were treated like property or dirt or both...blah blah blah."  I can't explain it, maybe it's a past life thing.  But I just can disappear in a book set in that time period like none other.  

That being said. Another reason I enjoy books about historical royal folks is that I really know diddley squat about them.  I mean nothing.  Not next to nothing, not a little bit.  D-I-D-D-L-E-Y.  The only thing I can tell you about anything about any royal family is that there is a wedding coming up in a few days that might get some air time.  So, when I read books like this it's all new and very exciting to me. 

But enough about me.  

If you liked The Other Boleyn Girl, or books like that one with lots of twists and turns and "OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT HAPPENED, AND WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT..." kind of stuff, then this book is totally for you.  And even if you know the story of Eleanor, you will probably enjoy the way Cecelia Holland fleshes out the story. 

Here is the blurb for a summary, but not too much:

Eleanor of Aquitaine seized hold of life in the 12th century in a way any modern woman would envy!

1151: As Duchess of Aquitaine, Eleanor grew up knowing what it was to be regarded for herself and not for her husband's title. Now, as wife to Louis VII and Queen of France, she has found herself  unsatisfied  with reflected glory-and feeling constantly under threat, even though she outranks every woman in Paris.

Then, standing beside her much older husband in the course of a court ceremony, Eleanor locks eyes with a man -hardly more than a boy, really-  across the throne room, and knows that her world has changed irrevocably...

He is Henry D'Anjou, eldest son of the Duke of Anjou, and he is in line, somewhat tenuously, for the British throne. She meets him in secret. She has a gift for secrecy, for she is watched like a prisoner by spies even among her own women. She is determined that Louis must set her free. Employing deception and disguise, seduction and manipulation, Eleanor is determined to find her way to power-and make her mark on history.

Cecelia manages to pull you through the narrative and leaves you breathlessly turning pages as fast as humanly possible.  I read this book in 4 days.  Basically as soon as I finished the last one I reviewed (The Civilized World by Susi Wyss) I picked this one up and read while watching TV, read in the car waiting for my daughter at this or that activity whilst my 4 year old was in the back seat earphones on movie in front of her --- in short -- I could not put it down!!!!  And really, people, isn't that every book lover's dream anyway?  To pick up a book and have it grab you until the very last EXTREMELY satisfying page????  In fact, I really really really wish Cecelia would continue the story until Eleanor's death.  She lived a very long life, even in this day and age, she died at a very ripe old age of 82... EIGHTY TWO!  Imagine!

There is plenty of swoon-worthy moments, and loads of description of the food, clothing, castle stuff -- all of the things that make historical fiction so damn yummy.  But not in a real romance-novelly kind of way, which is perfectly fine for some people, but I like them straight up with a bit of the bodice ripping.. if you get my meaning. 

If I could give this book more than 5 stars I would.  It's that good. 

For more about Cecelia Holland and her works (all 23 of them!) you can visit her website by clicking here. 

RATING:  5/5

TEASER TUESDAY! April 19th

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB over at Should Be Reading, and anyone can play!

• Grab your current read
• flip to a random page
• select 2 teaser sentences from anywhere on that page
• try not to include any spoilers
• remember to add the title of the book and the author

My teaser is from The Secret Eleanor by Cecelia Holland, which I am totally loving.

"I'll see you there?  You promise?" He gripped her wrist, as if to hold her there.  "I'll die every day I don't see you again."  

Um.. swoon?

For more TT's click here. 

REVIEW: HIS LAST LETTER by Jeane Westin

HIS LAST LETTER BY JEANE WESTIN

• aperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: NAL Trade; 1 edition (August 3, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451230124

First of all I want to send a HUGE THANK YOU to Penguin Publishing or sending me a copy of this book so many months ago.  Believe it or not historical fiction is my preferred genre, I absolutely hands-down love it.  And His Last Letter does not disappoint. 

Before picking up this book I knew absolutely about Elizabeth the 1st and not to mention the Earl of Leicester.  Nary a clue.  

Here is the product description courtesy of Amazon.com:

One of the greatest loves of all time-between Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley-comes to life in this vivid novel. 

They were playmates as children, impetuous lovers as adults-and for thirty years were the center of each others' lives. Astute to the dangers of choosing any one man, the Virgin Queen could never give her "Sweet Robin" what he wanted most-marriage- yet she insisted he stay close by her side. Possessive and jealous, their love survived quarrels, his two disastrous marriages to other women, her constant flirtations, and political machinations with foreign princes.

His Last Letter tells the story of this great love... and especially of the last three years Elizabeth and Dudley spent together, the most dangerous of her rule, when their passion was tempered by a bittersweet recognition of all that they shared-and all that would remain unfulfilled.

THis book easily grabs you from the very first paragraph, and the story keeps you riveted with the lusty magnet that holds Elizabeth and her beloved "Rob" together.  It is the classic unrequited love, and really is there any other story element that will keep you turning the pages as quickly? Nay, I say.. NAY!  

The only thing I had trouble with, and this is just ME and my puny little brain, is every time a new chapter started and there was a new year at the top, I had to flip back to the previous chapter to see which direction in time we had travelled.  I know it seems obvious, but sometimes it was only a matter of a few years, and other times it was into their much younger years. 

There is definate swooniness all over the pages of His Last Letter, and set against a backdrop of corsets and draped beds and tapestry covered walls, you will be swept away to that delicious time where social morays dictated how much passion or affection had to be hidden and secretly carried out.  SWOON!

RATING:  4/5

REVIEW: THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN BY KATE MORTON

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
Paperback: 560 pages

Publisher: Washington Square Press; Reprint edition (Feb 16 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1416550550

First I would like to send a HUGE THANK YOU to Anneliese from Simon and Schuster Canada for sending me a copy of this georgous book!

This was my first Kate Morton novel and I will say that it will not be my last.  This book is a lush telling of a little girl who is abandoned on a ship headed for Australia in 1913.  All she has in her possession when she arrives is a small suitcase containing a few clothes and a book - a book of fairytales.  She is found by the kindly dockmaster and his wife and they raise her as their own daughter.  On her 21st birthday Nell is told about how she was found, and with only vague memories of her past she sets off on a quest to find her true identity.  Her journey leads her all the way to the Blackhurst manor in England, the lavish home of the Mountrachet family.  Each corner digs the mystery deeper, and not until her granddaughter takes up the task after Nell's death is the puzzle finally solved. 

This tale is so rich and beautifully woven together, there is no other way to describe it!  I personally happen to love historical fiction, and also stories that interweave the past with the present.  Along with Nell and Cassandra escavating Nell's past, are two other parts of the puzzle.  One is of the woman known as The Authoress, Eliza, when she was a child and how she fits into Nell's life story.  You will find yourself not predicting the outcome, but being gently led along the path to uncover the clues along with the characters.  The setting is fertile and breathtaking what with all of the ocean breezes, misty mornings and the seaside cliff cottage.

This book could easily have gotten waaaay to complicated with all of the jumping around in time and the perspective changing from one person to the next, but it didn't .  I don't know HOW Kate manages to keep it all straight and beautifully unfolding the narrative bit by bit without confusing us, but she DOES.  I was constantly astounded at her skill as a writer.  Every once and a while I would come across a passage and think, "And there it is."  a detail brought up that was important to the overall outcome but was afraid that it would have been forgotten or not brought up again.

BRAVA!  To Miss Morton!  I cannot WAIT to dive into my ARC of The Distant Hours, and will hopefully be doing a giveaway of it at the time of my review.  I believe it is being released on November 9th so watch for it then!

RATING:  5/5

MAILBOX MONDAY

Mailbox Monday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Marcia over at The Printed Page...

In the last week I did recieve a few goodies!

A fellow adoptive mom is married to a doctor who has written several books.  Their daughter, Molly, is amazing.  She is their bio child and her two younger brothers are adopted from Ethiopia.  She has set up an amazing Charity called H2O for Ethiopia and she sells products to raise money for a well that she is building there.... and she's TEN YEARS OLD.  You can find her on Facebook if you like at H2O for Ethiopia Group. 

The books that her mom sent me are by Kevin Patterson, who is the dad:

Outside the Wire
by Kevin Patterson and Jane Warren
The war in Afghanistan in the words of
its participants

Consumption by Kevin Patterson
A novel

From Canadian Literature:
Patterson’s Consumption revolves around a lung infected with tuberculosis, which functions as a metaphor for the Inuit body diseased by the Europeans who settle Canada. The virus that ravages one girl’s lung serves to represent the way in which diseases decimate whole communities and then finally reveals the damaging potential of affluence on our bodies; thus the infected lung ultimately raises larger medical and cultural issues about epidemiology. This novel opens with a dedication taken from a French alms box to which one often returns in contemplation: “For the sick, the poor, and the ashamed.” Throughout the novel, Patterson investigates the complex relation between these three qualities or situations.

The Water in Between
by Kevin Patterson

A broken heart leads Kevin Patterson to the dock of a sailboat brokerage on Vancouver Island, where he stands contemplating the romance of the sea and his heartfelt desire to get away.  By the end of the day, he finds himself the owner of a thirty-seven-foot ketch called Sea Mouse.  Although he's never really been on the ocean before (aside from the occasional ferry ride), he feels compelled to sail to Tahiti and back, to burn away his failings in hard miles at sea.

Short stories....

The next two books are from Penguin Group (USA) and I could NOT be MORE excited about them!!!!!  Seeeeeriously, just LOOK at the cover of this one!  And the premise is very good....

One of the greatest loves of all time-between Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley-comes to life in this vivid novel.

They were playmates as children, impetuous lovers as adults-and for thirty years were the center of each others' lives. Astute to the dangers of choosing any one man, the Virgin Queen could never give her "Sweet Robin" what he wanted most-marriage- yet she insisted he stay close by her side. Possessive and jealous, their love survived quarrels, his two disastrous marriages to other women, her constant flirtations, and political machinations with foreign princes.
His Last Letter tells the story of this great love... and especially of the last three years Elizabeth and Dudley spent together, the most dangerous of her rule, when their passion was tempered by a bittersweet recognition of all that they shared-and all that would remain unfulfilled.

Um..... swoon?

And then:  
The Secret Eleanor
by Cecelia Holland
 
Eleanor of Aquitaine seized hold of life in the 12th century in a way any modern woman would envy!



1151: As Duchess of Aquitaine, Eleanor grew up knowing what it was to be regarded for herself and not for her husband's title. Now, as wife to Louis VII and Queen of France, she has found herself unsatisfied with reflected glory-and feeling constantly under threat, even though she outranks every woman in Paris.

Then, standing beside her much older husband in the course of a court ceremony, Eleanor locks eyes with a man-hardly more than a boy, really- across the throne room, and knows that her world has changed irrevocably...

He is Henry D'Anjou, eldest son of the Duke of Anjou, and he is in line, somewhat tenuously, for the British throne. She meets him in secret. She has a gift for secrecy, for she is watched like a prisoner by spies even among her own women. She is determined that Louis must set her free. Employing deception and disguise, seduction and manipulation, Eleanor is determined to find her way to power-and make her mark on history.
 
I am still not actively taking any review copies at this time, these were all agreed to long before I put the kaibosh on accepting books.  And I am so excited that I said YES!
 
ANYway... what's in YOUR mailbox???
 
 

TEASER TUESDAY - GLADIATOR STYLE! (AKA Gerard Butler!)

(DISCLAIMER:  Anytime I can use an image of Gerard Butler I will do so...that man is just toooooo yummy, seriously people!)

It's Teaser Tuesday time agaaaaaain!  This is my favourite weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB over at Should Be Reading, and ANYONE can play along!  If you have a blog and a TT just give us a link in the comments, if you do not have a blog you can still participate, just give us your TT in the comments!

• Grab your current read
• flip to a random page
• select two teaser sentences from anywhere on that page
• do not include any SPOILERS!
• But please DO include the book name and author so we can all add it to our TBR piles!

My teaser today is from the ARC "Mistress of Rome" by Kate Quinn (available for purchse April 6, 2010):

That would be to tempt God, who doesn't like to take second place in any human heart.  But Arius's sword-roughened hand slipped through my hair as if to feel my thoughts on his fingers, and then he caught me up so hard and close that I had no time for any thoughts at all.

SWOON!

Just a little aside to this TT today, this book is an ARC that was sent to me, and I have to admit when I saw the cover I kind of rolled my eyes... just a little.  Then when I started reading I felt frustrated at first because it is a historical fiction but the language is EXTREMELY modern and just did not have authenticity to it at all.  But I quickly let that go and just immersed myself in the novel.... AND I LOVE IT!!  I literally cannot put it down.  If you are like me and have read a lot of historical fiction, and if that is your preferred genre (as it is mine) just put aside any preconcieved idea of any historical type language and enjoy this book for all its glorious juiciness!

You can read more TT's here.

Have a WONDERFUL day!

MAILBOX MONDAY

MAILBOX MONDAY is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Marcia over at The Printed Page.

You can visit her blog for more MM, and you can add your links right here as well!  If you do not have a blog, you can still share your loot from the last week!  Just leave it in the comments.

Last week I was VERY EXCITED to recieve "Heresy" by S. Parris.  Is this not a GEORGOUS cover??!!!

A HUGE THANK YOU to Barbara from PENGUIN GROUP (CANADA) for this stunner. 

Here is the blurb from Amazon.ca:

England is rife with conspiracies to assassinate Elizabeth I and return the country to Rome—plots that foment in places like the fiercely papist University of Oxford. Giordano Bruno—renegade monk, poet, scientist, and magician—arrives in London, fleeing the Roman Inquisition. Bruno believes that the Earth orbits the sun, and this alone could have him burned at the stake, but he also seeks a lost book of ancient truth, which he believes will end the Wars of Religion.



Bruno is recruited by Elizabeth's spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, and sent undercover to Oxford, but his mission is thrown off course by a series of grisly murders. Bruno suspects that the murderer is trying to send a message— but what and to whom? Stalking the killer through the shadowy cloisters of the colleges and back streets of Oxford, he soon learns that sometimes even the wisest men cannot tell truth from heresy.

Doesn't it sound GOOOOD?!

What was in YOUR mailbox this past week?