Keturah and Lord Death

Title: Keturah And Lord Death

Auhor: Martine Leaveitt

Genre: YA Historical Fiction/Romance

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Keturah is her village's best storyteller. One day when she wanders into the woods to follow the great hart, she meets with Lord Death and makes a bargain: she will tell him the end of her story if she gets one more day (and then another, and another) to find her true love. Death agrees, and Keturah is launched on a desperate mission to find the one man who will be her love.

Keturah and Lord Death is beautifully told. It also surprised me. I was sure until the end that her true love was one person - and it wasn't. I was sure until the end that one thing was going to happen - and it didn't. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is a fan of young adult books, especially young adult historical fiction (as it does take place in medieval England).

Matilda Bone

Title: Matilda Bone

Author: Karen Cushman

Genre: Children's/Young Adult Historical Fiction

Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5

Matilda, an orphaned teenager, has been left at the door of a bonesetter by the priest who has practically raised her to stay, work, and learn while he goes to London to return who-knows-when. Matilda thinks herself far above Red Peg, the bonesetter she is left to help, because she, unlike Peg or most people in Peg's town, can read and write Latin, French, and a little Greek, knows all the saints and most of the demons of Hell and knows her numbers.

Little does Matilda know that the life she has found herself dropped into has much to teach her, both in temporal and in spiritual matters: Life is not meant to be dour and "holy"-fied; sometimes folk wisdom is better than empty book learning; good friends are better than dead saints.

Although Matilda starts the book off very annoying in her sanctimonious self-righteousness, she drops the attitude as she begins to learn the value of street-smarts and folk wisdom. Matilda Bone is similar to Cushman's other books, "Catherine, Called Birdy" and "The Midwife's Apprentice" - even to the point where I could predict several plot points from knowing those books. It's not as good as "Catherine" and is probably on par with "Apprentice."

2.5 stars: I would have liked it so-so as a kid, but it's not something which would have stuck with me like good childrens' books have.

Dragonfly in Amber

Title: Dragonfly in Amber
Author: Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Historical, Historical romance, Time-travel
Rating: 5 stars out of 5

Dragonfly in Amber is the second book in Diana Gabaldon's phenomenal "Outlander" series. At the end of Outlander, we left Claire and Jamie Fraser in an abbey in France, exiled from Scotland. At the opening of Dragonfly in Amber, we find Claire back in the highlands in 1968, investigating the fates of Jamie's men at the battle of Culloden - with her red-haired daughter Brianna: Jamie's daughter.

As the search for Jamie's men, and then Jamie himself, unfolds, Claire finds herself revealing to Brianna and their friend Roger her history with Jamie in the past - and we learn the other half of her and Jamie's adventure as they attempt to prevent the carnage they know is coming in the Jacobite rising and its culmination at Culloden.

As with Outlander, I have nothing but praise for Dragonfly. Although I did not race through Dragonfly as quickly as I did Outlander (this time it took me roughly a month to read Dragonfly's 950 pages as opposed to the week it took me to fly through Outlander's 860 pages), I still loved it. Every time I picked the book up, I could not put it down without having read at least 100 pages, if not more.

Dragonfly in Amber had me in turns gasping, laughing, and (at the end) crying. Sometimes I did all three at once. Even though I knew the battle was an inevitability - and we, as readers know this from Claire's search in Inverness from the beginning of the novel - I found myself hoping ad praying that Claire and Jamie could somehow prevent the disaster. Having been to Culloden battlefield myself, I cried at Gabaldon's description of battles and the uselessness I knew Jamie and Claire's self-appointed mission to be.

In fact, I immediately picked up the third book, Voyager, and am already 450 pages into it. Gabaldon delivers a powerful narrative, drawing the reader fully into her world: you cry with Claire, scream with rage for Jamie, and end on a hopeful note with Claire and Brianna, searching for the man whose love for them endures through the ages.

Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander

Title: Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander
Author: Ann Herendeen
Genre: Historical Romance (kind of?)
Rating: 3 stars out of 5

Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander is the story of Phyllida, an author of trashy gothic romances, and her bisexual husband, Andrew Carrington. Andrew married Phyllida in order to do his duty by his family and secure an heir. Phyllida married Andrew in order to be able to continue her career as an authoress. Both went into the marriage with open eyes, knowing Andrew would continue his dalliances with his male friends (in the titular Brotherhood of Philander). Neither expected to fall in love with the other.

Reading Phyllida reminded me greatly of quite a few fanfics I enjoy. There's a three-sided relationship: Andrew and Phyllida, Andrew and his lover(s), and his lover(s)'s friendship with Phyllida. Add in some spying and there you go. Oh, and did I mention it's a Regency novel?

The book is...okay. It is not stunning, nor is it horrible. Like I said, it reminds me very much of many fanfics I have read. The author weaves the lives of the characters - not only Phyllida and Andrew, but those of the entire Brotherhood - in and out of each other throughout the novel, and throws in a spy subplot to (it seems) draw the entire story out another two hundred pages. I would have been happy without the spy subplot, just reading the story of Andrew, Phyllida, Harry, Matthew, and the rest of the Brotherhood.

I stayed up all night to read the last two hundred pages, because I was engrossed with the characters' stories. However, I don't think I'll be borrowing this from the library again, nor will I be purchasing it any time soon.

Outlander

Title: Cross Stitch (UK Title) / Outlander
Author: Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Historical fiction/Historical romance
Rating: Can I give this 6 stars out of 5? No? Well then a very high 5 stars!

When wartime nurse Claire Randall goes on vacation in 1945 with her husband Frank to the Scottish highlands, she never dreams that she might walk through a stone circle and end up in the middle of a skirmish between English Redcoats and Scottish highlanders in 1743. Now, stranded and friendless, Claire must find her way amongst these people, fighting suspicion from both the Scotsmen who give her sanctuary and the English they hate, with but one true ally - a passionate and sincere young Scots outlaw named James Fraser.

What I can say about Outlander? I finished this last night and immediately made a post in my livejournal with lots of fangirlish squeeing going on. I'm trying very hard not to repeat that here, so I can make an intelligent review. To summarize it, though: Diana Gabaldon is amazing at her character building. I completely fell in love with Jamie, who is a very three-dimensional character, not just some generic Scottish highland romance hero. I was with Claire every step of her journey through time and the Highlands - including being PO'd at Jamie when she was. I hated the antagonist with every ounce of feeling I could muster, and loved Jamie's sister Jenny entirely.

Not only is Gabaldon a master at building characters, she presents Claire's fantastical story in such a way as to be entirely believable. I almost believe that if I were to go back to Inverness and Culloden, I would be able to find a circle of stones which could take me back to the Jacobite uprising - not that I would really want to find myself in that mess. I completely believed Claire's encounter with Nessie, and loved all the little historical details Gabaldon added to the book.

I cannot wait to race through the next 5 books in this series, and then on to the Lord John series (which is a companion series to Outlander - it takes place during the same time period, but with entirely different characters). Then I'll probably go back and re-read them again to catch all the details I missed the first time around. The book is some 850 pages long, and having gone through it in a week I know I missed a good deal of detail. I keep having to ask my mother (who introduced me to the series) about some bit or another, and have to refrain from begging her to tell me what happens later in the series!

Sharpe's Rifles

Title: Sharpe's Rifles
Author: Bernard Cornwell
Source: Border's
Rating: 3 stars out of 5

Although I don't usually like military history, I did enjoy this book. That could have been because I completely love the "Sharpe" DVD series - though the book was nothing like the movie, so maybe not. The style drew me in - dry enough to fit the genre, but not so dry that I did not care about the characters or the events. Those coming to this book expecting it to be what the movie was will be disappointed; those who come to it expecting a good story will not be disappointed in the least.

Mary, Queen of France

Title: Mary, Queen of France
Author: Jean Plaidy
Source: Border's
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5


Mary is the younger sister of Henry VIII, and he dotes on her. This book covers much her life - her betrothals to princes of Europe, her miserable marriage to the King of France, her love affair with Charles Brandon (the king's best friend), and finally her marriage to Brandon against her brother's wishes - a very dangerous game to play against Henry VIII.

The book's pacing was not even. At times the story raced and I flew through the pages; at other times it dragged on and seemed much longer than its 290 pages. Overall I liked the book, and I'm planning on eventually collecting all of the re-published books by Jean Plaidy.