Tag: book review

The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton

Writing: 3.5 Plot: 3.5 Characters: 4

Richly detailed historical fiction with a convoluted plot pulled from a set of narratives scattered across time but centered on place: Birchwood Manor — a 400 year old house immersed in myth and mystery. Murder, mayhem, stolen heirlooms, and old artifacts form the center of the story, but they exist in a sea of love, loss, and a range of historical settings including Queen Elizabeth and the Catholic persecution of 1586, the (fictional) Magenta Brotherhood artist group of the mid 1800s, the establishment of a school for young women in the late 1800s, London and environs in WWII, and modern day archival work. It’s engrossing but complicated — I found that documenting a timeline as I read was extremely helpful.

The writing is good but a little long winded for my taste. On the other hand, if you love historical dramas you may enjoy the longer opportunity to immerse yourself in the 500 pages of intriguing characters and historically accurate details. Did I mention that one of the narrators is clearly a (compelling) spirit that has been bound to the house for over a century?

 

The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden by Karina Yan Glaser

Thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s Book Group and NetGalley for an early review copy of The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden by Karina Yan Glaser, which will publish September 25, 2018.  All thoughts are my own.
Writing: 4 Plot: 5 Characters: 5

I loved this young readers book. It is the second in the Vanderbeeker series and every bit as good as the first. It reminds me of some of my favorite series from childhood — the characters became my friends, and I couldn’t wait to go along on the next adventure.

The five Vanderbeeker children live with their parents on the bottom two floors of a brownstone on 141st in Harlem. When Mr. Jeet, the above floor neighbor, has a debilitating stroke, they decide to create a hidden garden in the abandoned lot adjoining the church as surprise for his homecoming. This simple plot line gives rise to opportunities for a whole array of neighborhood kids to contribute while learning about caring, friendship, and the ability to create beauty from nothing.

I love this book for many reasons. These people are regular people. They are neither rich nor poor. Taking place in Harlem, the cast is decidedly multicultural, and there are little hints as to different backgrounds — but that is not the point. Some kids obviously come from loving nuclear families, while others have absent parents, substitute parents, or bits of tragedy in their histories — but that isn’t the point either. These people come together as friends and neighbors; they care about each other and try to help each other out. The book unashamedly models good values and behavior, demonstrating friendship, caring, self sufficiency, and having the agency to make bad situations better. Five stars.

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemison

I can definitely see why this book won the Hugo Award.  I had never read anything by N. K. Jamison before, but she is clearly a major talent. The craft and thought embedded in the pages are inspiring.

We are thrust into a catastrophic event in the first pages that is likely to launch the next Fifth Season. Fifth Seasons are Father Earth’s revenge for what humanity has done to the planet in this post-apocalyptic world.  These disastrous “seasons,” lasting for months, years, or centuries,  go by names like “Choking Season”, “Shattering Season”, “Acid Season”, and “Madness Season.”  The theme of this dark, intense, and utterly compelling novel is survival and control. The players: Orogenes have evolved to be able to control the massive powers of the Earth; Guardians have evolved to be able to control the Orogenes; Stills do neither.  And then there are the mysterious Stone Eaters who are just odd and not very human, who clearly have their own, hard to decipher, agenda.

The action filled and psychologically oriented plot begins with three distinct story lines that slowly evolve into one, explaining how we got to the current state described in the prologue.  It is a fantastically well developed world, with coherent themes, nomenclature, and social customs. It’s clearly a post-apocalyptic Earth and its fascinating to see how the author extrapolated from our present to this environment clearly millennia in our future. While this book doesn’t quite end with a cliff hanger, there is plenty left to reveal in the next two books (luckily, the third and final book will be available in less than a month).