The Inherited - Lily Burlington

The Inherited - Book 1
Lily Burlington
Inkitt
Copyright Date: September 9, 2017
B0753S3X57

The amazon.com product description:

One second Catherine believes that she is a normal girl, the next she finds herself betrothed to a Prince. Together they are thrust into a world of political intrigue, ancient oaths, & deadly mystery.

All Cat wants is to make it through her final exams and to get into a good university but that is put on hold when two men show up on her doorstep and tell her she is the last descendant of an ancient and forgotten royal bloodline. Not only that, but they offer her the chance of a lifetime trip to spend the summer living it up in castles and yachts off the coast of France. The only hitch is that she has to be a brooding prince's arm candy.

A summer of parties and beaches changes faster than the tides when old secrets begin to be unearthed and blood binding decrees are called upon.

Can truth and love survive when the path to the throne and crown is riddled with deception and daggers?

First of all, I want to note that I got an ARC for this book through Inkitt in return for a review. That said, on with the review.

The Inherited - book one is definitely a "first book". There are plenty of loose ends left for the rest of the series. Right off the bat, it reminded me of The Selection by Kiera Cass. It's a quick read, but, for the most part, it kept my attention. However, there was one issue that honestly should have been caught before it got to this stage. First of all, while the description above calls the main character Catherine, all through the actual book she's called Winnifred or Fred. Her mother's name also changes through the book. It's a minor thing, but I have to admit that it's definitely a bit jarring.

In spite of that, this was a very readable book, and I wouldn't mind finding out what's going to happen in the next one. It definitely seems as though most of the meatier plots of this book got left to be resolved in future titles. Also, I found that the characters grew on me a bit as the book progressed. I also found it very refreshing to not have a love-triangle set-up for once.

Like The Selection, The Inherited reads to me like a teen/Young Adult book, and I'd recommend it to that age group.

Pride And Predjudice And Zombies: The Dawn Of The Dreadfuls - Steve Hockensmith

Pride And Predjudice And Zombies: The Dawn Of The Dreadfuls
Steve Hockensmith
Quirk Books
Copyright: 2010
978-1594744549

The amazon.com product description:

Journey Back to Regency England—Land of the Undead!

Readers will witness the birth of a heroine in Dawn of the Dreadfuls a thrilling prequel set four years before the horrific events of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. As our story opens, the Bennet sisters are enjoying a peaceful life in the English country side. They idle away the days reading, gardening, and daydreaming about future husbands until a funeral at the local parish goes strangely and horribly awry.

Suddenly corpses are springing from the soft earth and only one family can stop them. As the bodies pile up, we watch Elizabeth Bennet evolve from a naive young teenager into a savage slayer of the undead. Along the way, two men vie for her affections: Master Hawksworth is a powerful warrior who trains her to kill, while thoughtful Dr. Keckilpenny seeks to conquer the walking dead using science instead of strength. Will either man win the prize of Elizabeth's heart? Or will their hearts be feasted upon by hordes of marauding zombies? Complete with romance, action, comedy, and an army of shambling corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls will have Jane Austen rolling in her grave and just might inspire her to crawl out of it! 

I never really expected to find myself really enjoying Dawn of the Dreadfuls, and I still don't fully understand the draw this whole type of book has these days. I know I posted on the topic once before last year: Zombies Vampires and Classics.

Anyway, I got a copy of this book at a book-fair opportunity I got through a work opportunity. So, I figured I'd give it a try. Pride And Predjudice And Zombies: The Dawn of the Dreadfuls was actually a pretty funny read. My copy was an ARC, so not all of the illustrations were there - in fact, they were represented by place-holders of the first image.

Yes, it's classed as horror, but the book wasn't too gruesome at all. As I said, I found it more funny than anything else. On the other hand, I've never read the original Pride and Predjudice by Jane Austen, so I can't say anything about some of the reviews I've seen on how these books have destroyed the characters. On the other hand, I went in with no preconceptions or expectations and as a result, I found myself pleasantly surprised.

The book is called "Dawn of the Dreadfuls" suggesting it might explain where the zombies might have come from, but it didn't do that at all. Instead, it sets up a resurgence of the zombie menace, hinting that there might be something even earlier that could be told.

A funny read that might even lead to my reading the mayhem that started the whole thing off in the future. Maybe. Still, this was a book I enjoyed reading.

The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet - David Mitchell

The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet
David Mitchell
Random House
Copyright: 2010
978-1400065455

The Amazon.com product description:

In 2007, Time magazine named him one of the most influential novelists in the world. He has twice been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. The New York Times Book Review called him simply “a genius.” Now David Mitchell lends fresh credence to The Guardian’s claim that “each of his books seems entirely different from that which preceded it.” The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is a stunning departure for this brilliant, restless, and wildly ambitious author, a giant leap forward by even his own high standards. A bold and epic novel of a rarely visited point in history, it is a work as exquisitely rendered as it is irresistibly readable.

The year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, the “high-walled, fan-shaped artificial island” that is the Japanese Empire’s single port and sole window onto the world, designed to keep the West at bay; the farthest outpost of the war-ravaged Dutch East Indies Company; and a de facto prison for the dozen foreigners permitted to live and work there. To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, costly courtesans, earthquakes, and typhoons comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout and resourceful young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fiancée back in Holland.

But Jacob’s original intentions are eclipsed after a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured daughter of a samurai doctor and midwife to the city’s powerful magistrate. The borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure blur until Jacob finds his vision clouded, one rash promise made and then fatefully broken. The consequences will extend beyond Jacob’s worst imaginings.  As one cynical colleague asks, “Who ain’t a gambler in the glorious Orient, with his very life?”

A magnificent mix of luminous writing, prodigious research, and heedless imagination, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is the most impressive achievement of its eminent author. 

I got sent an ARC copy of this book from Random House through work a few days before it hit the bookshelves, but I only just finished reading it yesterday. The timing was rather amusing, as I've been on a bit of a Japan and the Orient kick in my reading lately, so this was a book I was glad to start reading right away. It was also the first book by David Mitchell that I've read.

The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob de Zoet is one of those books where you're best off if you have long periods of time to read it and a chance to really focus on the characters and story. Otherwise, I found at least in my case that I was trying to figure out what was going on and what relation it had to the events of the story.

I found the story to be quite interesting, if unpredictable and the characters to be well developed and 'real'. I'm saying "unpredictable" for the story because every time I thought I could predict what kind of a story this was, I found that I was quite wrong. It's been over a day now, and I'm still trying to figure out if the ending of the book is a "happy ending" or not. In some ways it reads more like a memoir than a novel, but it's also the different threads of the story.

There's the main character, Jacob, but there are also a number of other viewpoint characters as well, such as Miss Abigawa and a lot of the other minor characters of the story. There were a few times when a new character was introduced abruptly that left me wondering who they were and why they were so important to the story, at least at that point.

I would like to say that David Mitchell has written a very well researched story in The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob de Zoet, at least it feels right, but I know very little about this time-period, culture and region. However, it does match up with what I've read in the other books so far. There's certainly a wealth of little details, but they don't bog the story down any.

Overall, I have to say that this was a really good book, and one I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to any lover of historical fiction.

Our Hart Elegy for a Concubine - Lloyd Lofthouse

Our Hart Elegy for a Concubine
Lloyd Lofthouse
January 2010?
Three Clover Press
9780981955315

The blurb from the e-mail I was sent when I was offered a copy of Our Hart Elegy For A Concubine for review:

Our Hart, Elegy for a Concubine is the sequel to the award-winning historical fiction novel My Splendid Concubine, and this second book shows shows Robert Hart in action as he becomes the "Godfather of China's Modernism." Hart not only became famous as Inspector General of Chinese Maritime Customs, but he was behind the building of China's railroads, postal service and schools. Hart arrived in China in 1854 from Ireland and by 1908 had made his indelible mark on Chinese society. The Ch'ing Dynasty called him "Our Hart."

This volume also reveals the love story that Hart did not want the world to know about. Behind every great man, there is a woman; and for Hart it was Ayaou, a Chinese concubine.

 First, I should note that I was given an ARC copy of Our Hart, Elegy For A Concubine for review. That said, on with the review and my thoughts:

This is the sequel to the book My Splendid Concubine (Amazon.com link), but I can certainly tell you that you don't need to have read the first book for this one to be a good read. I haven't read it yet. However, I'd certainly like to now.

Robert Hart, who I'm guessing is an actual historical figure is torn between the life he's building for himself in China, and the life he left behind in Victorian England. He's found love and created a family for himself on the Chinese model, but constantly in the back of his head is the knowledge that his family in England would disapprove. Much of the background for this story, including the situation Hart and Ayaou find themselves in at the beginning of Our Hart, as well as the cast of characters is clearly material that had been left at the end of My Splendid Concubine, but much of it is gradually explained as the story progresses.

I really enjoyed reading this, and I'm discovering an interest in the China of this period and earlier. The characters are three dimensional and 'real', part of which, I suspect is due to their being actual figures of history, even if I don't know much about it.

This is not a long book, but neither is it too short. There's enough detail that I was able to 'see' the settings, characters and way of life, but not enough to bog the story down by slowing it down too much.

I certainly enjoyed the story, but I will also admit that there were quite a few points where I felt lost, not knowing what had happened previously, because I hadn't read the first book.

My final note is that the book is due to be released some time this month (January 2010), but I don't see any sign of it on Amazon.com or Chapters/Indigo.ca, as either being out now, or available for pre-order. When it does come out though, I recommend both My Splendid Concubine (amazon.com link) and Our Hart Elegy For A Concubine as good reads if you like historical fiction.

ARC Arrival: The Man Who Loved Books Too Much

I've been receiving books to review for a couple of months now, but today's arrival is another first. This is the first advanced review copy of a book.

The book is The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett, and it's due out on September 17th, 2009.

The amazon.com description of the book is:

In the tradition of The Orchid Thief, a compelling narrative set within the strange and genteel world of rare-book collecting: the true story of an infamous book thief, his victims, and the man determined to catch him.

Rare-book theft is even more widespread than fine-art theft. Most thieves, of course, steal for profit. John Charles Gilkey steals purely for the love of books. In an attempt to understand him better, journalist Allison Hoover Bartlett plunged herself into the world of book lust and discovered just how dangerous it can be.

Gilkey is an obsessed, unrepentant book thief who has stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of rare books from book fairs, stores, and libraries around the country. Ken Sanders is the self-appointed "bibliodick" (book dealer with a penchant for detective work) driven to catch him. Bartlett befriended both outlandish characters and found herself caught in the middle of efforts to recover hidden treasure. With a mixture of suspense, insight, and humor, she has woven this entertaining cat-and-mouse chase into a narrative that not only reveals exactly how Gilkey pulled off his dirtiest crimes, where he stashed the loot, and how Sanders ultimately caught him but also explores the romance of books, the lure to collect them, and the temptation to steal them. Immersing the reader in a rich, wide world of literary obsession, Bartlett looks at the history of book passion, collection, and theft through the ages, to examine the craving that makes some people willing to stop at nothing to possess the books they love.

I've got to say it looks like an interesting book, and it's put me in a bit of a dilemma: what to read next? My choices are: Graceling by Kristen Cashore (a library book), Defenders of the Scroll (another book given to me for review), a book for one of the challenges I'm participating in, or one of the new history books I bought yesterday (Anthony Everitt's biography of Hadrian, or The Inheritance of Rome by Chris Wickham). All of the choices look really good.