Leaving Everything Most Loved by Jacqueline Winspear

Synopsis From Back Cover:

London, 1933.  Two months after Usha Pramal's body is discovered in the waters of a city canal, her brother, newly arrived in England, turns to Maisie Dobbs for help.  Not only has Scotland Yard made no arrests, but evidence indicates they failed to conduct a full investigation.  Usha had been staying at an ayah's hostel, a refuge for Indian women.  As Maisie learns, Usha was different from the hostel's other residents.  But with this discovery comes new danger, as a fellow lodger who was close to Usha is found murdered. 

As Maisie is pulled deeper into a unfamiliar yet captivating subculture, her investigation becomes clouded by the unfinished business of a previous case, and by a growing desire to see more of the world.  At the same time, her lover, James Compton, gives her an ultimatum she cannot ignore. 

It's been almost two years since I read the previous book in the series, Elegy for Eddie, and I'm finding that I can almost copy that review, and paste it here. Now since then, I have gone back to read the books I skipped over, and as of right now, I've read the entire series, including the next book, A Dangerous Place, which I will have a review of later in the week.  Maisie is still a little too angsty in this one, still a little too unsure of herself, or what she wants in life.   The title fits not only the story, but where her mindset is at.

By the way, I'm trying to write this review, and not allow it to be tainted by the fact I've already read the next one.

I know Maisie has been through a lot in her short life, that she has lost more than most of us will ever have to deal with.  Her experiences in the first World War, and what she suffered through, will always taint her perceptions of who she is, and what she wants.  I really do get it.  I also get that if Maisie was the creation of a less gifted author, that a lot of the issues would be glossed over and forgotten, and that would be a damn shame.  Maisie Dobbs in one of the most complex and four dimensional characters I've come across in a long time.  Jacqueline Winspear has done a find job at developing her into a character that is so admirably damaged.  I just wish, and while it was to a degree, that the angst had been spread out just a tad bit more.  I wish Maisie had been dealing with all of her issues the entire length of the series, and not have them come to the forefront in the last two books.

Maisie has deep wounds that she forced to the back or her mind, thought she had dealt with, but with the death of her mentor Maurice, she is now having to deal with them head on.  For the last two books she has been reevaluating her place in life, what she wants out of it, and on a more fundamental level, who she is.  Me personally, I wish it hadn't taken two full books to do it, that she would have made up her mind on some of the subjects long before, but I get that I can't make a character behave in a certain way, just to appease my sense of timing.  And yes, I get that unless you have been reading this series from the beginning, you won't understand half of what I'm saying, so I apologize for that.  I can honestly say that I'm relieved by the end, because I know she is finally on the right track, that she isn't going to be stupid and reject James, that she is finally going to allow herself to be happy.

One little side note before I move onto the actual mystery aspect of the book, I'm not sure I'm completely comfortable with what happens to Billy in this book.  Having him flirt with the idea of having an affair with Sandra, seems so out of character of him.   I get that he and his family have had some horrific things happen to them, and that he probably feels more adrift than Maisie, but when is enough enough.  I think the author has done a real disservice to this character, it was almost as if she wasn't sure what to do with him anymore, so lets just screw his life up completely, and push him aside.  I know that by the end, he is back on the right track, but it still feels as if the author is done with him, and that's a crying shame.  Billy has been the oddly beating heart of the series, and it's going to be horribly saddening to see him go away.  I just wish we would  have had more closure with him, and his family, before that happened.

If you can't tell by know, this series, for me at least, is about the characters more than the mystery aspect.  As in the previous books, the mystery itself, while rather violent, still has, for lack of a better word, a gentleness about it.   This author is so gifted at writing Maisie's character into the story, it's a little hard to differentiate where her and the mystery are separated.  The author, much like Dame Christie, is gifted at weaving a rather intricate story into a tale that is both challenging, and easy to follow.  At no point in time, with any of these books, have I felt as if I was being tricked or purposefully led astray by the action.  It's, as always, well crafted and well told, and worth the read.

One last note, if you think this review is a jumbled mess, I get it.  My feelings are so over the place, so confused in my head, that writing a coherent review for this one, has been a struggle.  I tried to express myself as clearly as I could, but I'm not sure if I pulled it off.  So please accept my apologies, but also know that if I didn't like this character, and this series as much as I do, I wouldn't be having this issue.

I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read and review this book. Please visit the tour page to read other reviews.

Challenges: A-Z Mystery

Three Ex-Boyfriends & The Books They Made Me Love

For the most part, a lot of us think of ex-boyfriends (or ex-girlfriends) in a rather negative light. For whatever reason, they are the ones we invited into our lives, only to have them leave on a negative note.  There may have been something horribly wrong in the relationship, or that spark may have just fizzled out.  In a lot of my past relationships, it was the timing of the whole thing that was a huge factor.  I've dated some great guys, just one of us would not be ready for a serious relationship. No matter the reason it didn't work out, most of us don't like think of our past relationships.  They tend to be examples of failure, and failure never feels good.

I would like to think I've taken something positive out of every relationship I've been in, no matter how disastrous they turned out to be.  From Andrew, I learned to love Dos Equis Amber, and it's still the only beer I will drink.  From Alberto, I learned how to recognize my limitations, and not to try and push myself into accepting things I'm not willing to deal with. From Joel, I learned to love Shania Twain, and that I won't put with the silent treatment.  From Martin, I learned that I don't have infinite patience and expecting a different result with the same factors in place, is a dumb idea.  And from some of my ex-boyfriends, while the love may not have lasted between us, assuming it was there to begin with, I did leave the relationship with a new love.  Some of those relationships exposed me to new books, and authors, I've grown to cherish over the years.

My relationship with Vincent was doomed from the start.  I got sucked in the night my first real boyfriend, Jeremy, broke up with me.  It seemed that Jeremy was tired of sneaking around behind my back, and wanted to be able to pursue others, without it being a secret.  Vincent was a mutual acquaintance of ours, and one night at the club, it seems as if they joined forces.  Jeremy told him he was going to break up with me, and that if Vincent was interested in me, to be waiting in the wings to come swoop me up.  It was a tacky thing to do, oh lord was it tacky, but I fell for it.  I let him comfort me that night, soothe away my pain, and my first rebound relationship was born.  It didn't last very long, thank god, but I did walk away from it with my first book boyfriend, Vanyel Ashkevron.

Vincent was a huge Mercedes Lackey fan, and he kept on talking about the three books in her Last Herald Mage trilogy.  He knew I loved to read, and I think he was trying to connect with me on a more than physical level.  It wasn't long before I was in love with not only Vanyel, but with Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series in general.  Here was a world in which men and women were called, from all corners of society, to serve their kingdom.  They sacrificed their lives in some cases to defend their realm, and they were to the one, good and honest people.  The Heralds, and Vanyel in particular, where the personifications of sacrifice and honor, and I loved them for it.  

I now own 40 of her books, have read them all numerous times, and Vanyel is one of my all time favorite characters.  I try to visit with him at least once a year, though blogging has made rereading a little more difficult than it used to be. 

Derek was my first kiss and first, well you don't need to know that part.  I met him in college, and while I can't say we ever dated, it was more than a casual hookup.  It was during the first semester of my Freshman year, and I wasn't really out to a lot of my friends on campus.  A bunch of us had gone to another town to a club that allowed anyone 18 and over to come in.  We met him there, and a bunch of us became friends.  He came down to our campus one night to hangout, and while a few of us were talking, I slipped in my coming out so smoothly, two of them didn't realize I did it for a good ten minutes.  That night I kissed a guy for the first time, and it felt like I was coming home.  Over the next two years he was a great teacher, if somewhat infrequent, and while I think we really did care about each other, the love spark never happened.   We are still friends, connected on Facebook, and I will always be grateful for making my first of everything as enjoyable as it was. 

He ended up moving to Colorado, and for the longest time we kept in touch, and I actually took a trip out there for a visit one year, and that's when I was introduced to The Thief of Always by Clive Barker.  It was one of Derek's favorite books, and I was enraptured almost from the first page.  It's a modern day fable of a young boy who just isn't happy with his life.  He is bored all the time, and just knows there is something out there, something better than what he has now.  He is quickly conned into visiting a magical house where all four seasons, with the accompanying holidays, cycle throughout the day.  Little does he know that every day spent in the house, is a full year in the real world. Once he figures out something is really wrong, he does everything he can to get home.

This is another of those books that I've read multiple times, and has led me to reading Clive Barker's Abarat series as well.  I've fallen in love with the way he writes books for young adults.  They are edgy, darker in tone, and completely surreal.  I haven't read The Thief of Always since I started blogging, but I'm pretty positive it will be getting a visit this Fall. 

What can I say about Brent? He was slight nerdy, adorably nice, and hung up on someone else.  I'm positive this wasn't a love match for either one of us, but we enjoyed each other's company, and for the most part we had fun with it.  It was one of those relationships that just sort of fizzled out, all on it's own, and thankfully we both not only recognized it, but we were okay with it as well.  We stayed friends for a while, but life drifts people apart, and the last I knew he was living in Florida.

Brent introduced me to the books of Guy Gavriel Kay, and I owe him dinner a thousand times over for making that introduction possible.  I've had a hot/cold relationship with fantasy for a long time now, and for whatever reason, I tend to be a little picky in what I read.  I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I can pick up any Kay book, and I will instantly fall in love with the world he created, and the inhabitants that dwell there.  There is a lyrical quality to his books that is pretty impossible to explain, but it makes his books a physical pleasure to read.  Within a few pages, I will be transported into another world, and I will never want to leave.  His writing is beautiful, and his characters are so well written, you can't imagine them not existing in real life.  He has never failed to deliver, and as I'm writing this post, I'm feeling an almost overwhelming pull to grab a few of his book off my shelves, and lose myself for the next few hours. 

Favorite Fictional Character --- Shirlee Kenyon

Occasionally, I will fall in love with a character on the big screen because of the actor/actress playing them.  That's not to say I wouldn't have enjoyed the movie, or the character, had a different actor been cast, but it's the actor that makes it go form like to love.  In a rare case it makes me go from being in love, to being obsessed.  It doesn't even have to be that great of a movie, or one that will change the hearts and minds of the general public, but it needs to entertain me.  It needs to make me laugh out loud, hide my eyes in fear, or turn my head to keep someone from seeing me cry.  If the movie, and the actor, can make me do all three things, it's even better.   Not sure that's ever happened, but I'm looking forward to the day.

One of those not so great movies was Straight Talk, starring the delicious Dolly Parton.  It's not groundbreaking, the writing isn't the best, but Dolly Parton as Shirlee Kenyon is all I needed to fall in love.

Shirlee is the typical small town girl.  She is working a dead end job, is in a dead end relationship, and once she can't take it anymore, she packs it all up and is off to Chicago.  Once there, she has not job prospects, and most importantly, no money.  When you have to go out on the ledge of a bridge in order to safe your last bill, you are down on your luck.  Through a big misunderstanding and even more smaller ones, Shirlee ends up on the radio.  She is Chicago's newest talk radio host, and the city will never be the same again.

What makes Shirlee that small town girl, the folksiness and the advice that sounds like it's coming from your 90 year old grandmother, is what makes her a hit on the radio.  She is so sweet, naive, and about as uncynical as you can get.   She tells it like she sees it, and before long she's about to go national.  The only issue, her boss has been promoting her as Dr. Shirlee, and she is definitely no doctor. 

Shirlee, and by default Dolly, is the reason why this movie is so great.  She goes through life with such heart, that's is hard to find anything wrong with the world while you are in her presence.  I love her for many of the same reasons I fell in love with Celeste Talbert, another character in an okay movie, made great by the actress playing her, Sally Field.  Of course, the fact that I can't help but laugh through the vast majority of my time spent with Shirlee endears her to my heart. 

Bitten by Kelley Armstrong

Synopsis From Dust Jacket:

Young, beautiful, and successful, Elena Michaels seems to have it all.  Her happy, organized life follows a predictable pattern: filing stories for her job as a journalist, working out at the gym, living with her architect boyfriends, and lunching with her girlfriends form the office.  And once a week, in the dead of night, she streaks though a downtown ravine, naked and furred, tearing at the throats of her animal prey. 

Elena Michael is a werewolf.

The man who made her one has been left behind, but his dark legacy has not.  And though Elena struggles to maintain the normal life she's worked so hard to create, she cannot resist the call of the eleite pack of werewolves from her past.  Her feral instincts will lead her back to them and into a desperate war for survival that will test her own understand of who, and what, she is.

Do you ever think about a series you used to love, but for whatever reason, it lost it's appeal?  If you don't, no sweat, I do enough thinking about it for everyone.  I'm one of those that feels a strong guilt about it.  Now I'm not beating my chest and flogging myself, but I do feel more than a tad bit of remorse.

 I can't tell you how many series I have gotten into over the years, then completely lost interest in.  For the most part it happened preblogging more than it does now, and I have no clue as to why.  Most of the series I've lost interest in would be classified as urban fantasy, and that may have an overly large role in it.  It didn't take long for me to get bored with all the vampires, werewolves, wizards, and demons living in a modern world, so the books they inhabited didn't appeal to me for very long.   There are a few that I still read when a new book comes out, but for the most part, I flirted for a while, then dropped them faster than you could say Lestat.  One series that lasted for a few books before getting the cold shoulder was Kelley Armstrong's Otherworld series, of which, Bitten is the first book.

Oddly, even though I gave up on the series, I still love this book, and I hadn't read it since I started blogging.  For whatever reason, I picked it up last week, and a few hours later, I was turning the last page.  It didn't take long for me to fall right back in love with Elena, Clay, Jeremy, and all the rest of the Pack.  I'm not really sure what the author had going on in this one, and Stolen the second book in the series, but the writing is so much better, and the characters are fully fleshed out in a way I can't say about some of the later books.  I really wish she had stuck with this first set of characters, instead of going off and getting the rest of the supernatural races involved.

In Elena and Clay, you have the perfect couple.  They love each, can't live with out each other, but they have both made some horrible decisions, putting so much tension into their relationship, it pulsates off the page.  When the book opens, they haven't been in the same state for over a year, and their reintroduction doesn't go smoothly.  If it wasn't for the dangerous situation they were having to deal with, and the rest of the Pack members acting as a buffer, that tension made have become too implosive, harming the reading in the process.

The writing in the first few books, and in Bitten specifically, is so tight, so put together, it's hard to find any flaws in it.  Armstrong keeps the narrative moving at a natural pace, allowing the characters and the events to set the tone.  She doesn't force them into convoluted interactions, or behaviors that go against who they are.   It's a perfect blend of style, characterization, and storytelling.  But most importantly, it's a book that has a permanent home of my bookshelves, even if it's extended family was served with eviction papers.

Breaking Cover by Kaje Harper

Synopsis From Publisher:

For homicide detective Mac, it's been a good year.  Having Tony to go home to makes him a better cop and a better person.  For Tony, it's been hard being n love with a man he can't touch in public.  Evasions and outright lying to friends and family take a little of the shine off his relationship with Mac, but Tony is determined to make it work. 

As the Minneapolis Police Department moves into a hot, humid summer, Mac is faced with a different challenge.  A killer has murdered two blond women, an the police have no real clues.  Mac hates to think that another murder may be the only way they'll make progress with the case.  but when that murder happens, it hits close to home for Tony.  And suddenly Mac faces an ultimatum; come out into the sunshine and stand beside Tony as his lover, or walk away and live without a piece of his heart. 

This is the second book in the Life Lessons series, and it was even better than the first.  There was not one aspect of the book that failed to keep my interest, and in the case of the mystery aspect of it, it kept me on the edge of my seat for the vast majority of the time.

It's been about a year since the happenings of the first book, and the two men have fallen into a pretty complacent, but happy relationship. Yeah, Tony isn't all that happy about Mac's refusal to come out of the closet, but he understands Mac's reasoning behind it.  Mac has never been happier, but he is scared to death of coming out.  He doesn't think his colleagues will take it very well, and he's scared about what would happen with his daughter's primary caregiver, a very uptight and conservative cousin.  Mac still has his own place, but has a key to Tony's.

Their personal life comes to a head when the mother of the young boy he has been helping to raise, the son of a best friend who dies before the series ever started, is the third victim in a horrible fashion, with the young boy in the other room.  Tony, while named as guardian in the will, finds himself in a custody battle with the boy's grandparents, who feel Tony is a horrible choice to raise their grandson.  Now who cares that those same grandparents threw their daughter out and have had nothing to do with the child, but they can't have a homosexual raise the kid.  Tony panics, and does everything he can to make sure he is granted custody.  And sadly for the relationship, he understands with Mac being unable to come out, their relationship could be a stumbling block.

At this point in time, as much as I like Mac, I can't help but think he's being a coward and hurting himself in the process.  When Tony gives Mac a chance, bet it a small one, to come out i the open, Mac shuts down, and Tony is forced to walk away.  Neither is happy with the situation, but neither man can see around his own needs given the circumstances they find themselves in.

Through a few agonizing weeks leading up to the custody hearing, both men are miserable, and the impasse holds.  And this is where I fall in love with Mac all over again.  In order to make sure Tony is granted custody, he comes out, though not with a lot of forethought.    It's a wonderful scene, and it's written with such honesty, that I couldn't' help but smile the entire way through it.   Some of the issues he was scared of start coming true, especially some of the reactions from his coworkers.  The interactions are written honestly and with such detail, that you can't help but feel a bit sorry for the guy, and have a lot of pride in him at the same time.  It's a long painful process for him to go through, especially since it means he's really having to come to a place within himself where is is fully comfortable as a gay man.   Their relationship isn't fixed fully right away, but you know that they, along with the two kids, are on a strong road to forming a family they can all be proud of.

The mystery itself is a grand adventure, and it's obvious that the author has done her homework.  The investigation is plodding and tedious at times, but the men and women involved are dedicated to their jobs and they slog through it all.  There is a lot of police procedural details in the book, and it makes the story that much richer.  There is nothing far fetched about the details, or the solution, and it reads like a well scripted show on the ID channel.

The solution, and the final confrontation are brilliantly written and at times I really wasn't sure how it was all going to end.  I know it's a romance mystery, so the ending has to be happy, but the standoff is so full of tension, that I was afraid things were about to go horribly wrong.


Challenges: Men in Uniform 

New Spring by Robert Jordan (Password Clue)

Synopsis From Dust Jacket:

For three days the battle has raged in the snow around the great city of Tar Valon.  In the city, a foretelling of the future is uttered.  One the slope of Dragonmount, the immense mountain that looms over the city, is born an infant prophesied to change the world.  That child must be found before the forces of the Shadow have an opportunity to kill him.  Moiraine Damodred, a young accepted soon to be raised to Aes Sedai, and Lan Mandragoran, a soldier fighting in the battle, are set on paths that will bind their lives together.  But those paths are filled with complications and dangers, for Moiraine, of the Royal House of Cairhein, whose king has just died, and Lan, considered the uncrowned king of a nation long dead, find their lives threatened by the plots of those seeking power.

After I had done my Favorite Fictional Character post on Perrin Aybara, I was longing to dive back into the world of Robert Jordan.  While I was craving a taste, I really didn't want to gorge on the entire feast, so I went back and reread the prologue to the entire series, New Spring.  During my last drive to reread the entire series in order, so I could finally read the concluding book, I skipped over this one, though I'm really not sure why.  At only 334 pages, it's a rather short read compared to the other 14 books, so it wouldn't have taken much to fit this one in at the beginning.

When I dove back into these pages, it was like I was coming home.  I don't think I truly realized how much I had fallen in love with the world, and how much it meant to me.  After I finished A Memory of Light, I don't think I fully processed everything that happened, nor did I allow myself to fully accept some of the events that took place in that final book.   Because of that, my mind has been in turmoil when it comes to these books, and finding myself once again walking among the characters, healed some of that for me.  It wasn't a complete healing, I would have to spend time with some of the others for that to happen, if it's even a possible goal to reach.  I think I need to see a few epilogues written, instead of reading a prologue, but since I'm sure that will never happen, I'm going to be of two minds on this series for a long time to come.

New Spring was originally intended to be the first book of a prologue history, but like so many things, I think this will be the only one.  This is the book where we first meet Moiraine, Lan, and Siuan Sanche.  They are three of my favorite characters in the series, so seeing how they got their start on such a perilous journey is a treat to read.  In the 14 books of the main series, you know they all have tight relationships, but being able to see how they first formed, and how strong those relationships were from the beginning, is comforting in it's own way.  It's always nice to have the back story, so you can understand the way the dynamics work, and even more importantly, why they work.

If anyone is interested in getting started with the series, and why you wouldn't I have no clue, this is a good place to start.  It was published after book 10, but I'm not sure that really mattes all that much.  Since this is a relatively short novel, and it explores the history of some of the events and people involved, it's a good place to get your feet wet and decide if this is something for you.  In the end, I think it will be, and you'll be more than glad to get started on the journey.

Challenges: Password (Spring)

Favorite Fictional Character --- Lassie

I don't think there is a boy my age, or a girl for that matter, who wasn't envious of Timmy Martin.  Growing up, I was a sucker for dogs.  There was rarely at time when we didn't have at least one dog, and I loved them all.  I won't say I didn't have favorites, cause I did, but I'm a true dog lover, so they were all awesome to me.  Maybe one day I'll tell you guys about a few of them, but for now, I need to tell you about a particular fictional dog.  And she's one that almost all of us loved, as much as we did our household dogs.

Like most dog lovers, I'm a sucker for a story that features a dog as the hero.  In the past I've done Favorite Fictional Character posts about some of my favorite dogs, including Benji, but this about a certain Collie who will always be a household name.

The star of 11 feature films, 12 TV shows and made for TV movies, 2 radio programs, and over 50 books, Lassie is the Collie with a heart of gold and the courage of lion.  She has saved kids from danger, park rangers from being killed, and other animals from harm.  She is a guardian angel on four legs, and I prayed that someday I would have a dog just like her.

I've always thought that a large reason humans and dogs have formed such deep bonds over our history on this planet, is that dogs are such loyal creatures.  It's that loyalty and devotion, between both parties, that makes our existence on this planet tolerable.  And not matter how strong a bond exists between a dog and it's human, the bond is always stronger when their human is a child.  For me, Lassie embodies all that is right in that connection.

Regardless of who the kid was; Jeff, Timmy, Joe, or the countless others, Lassie was at her best when she was with them. She cared for them, protected them, and gave them the kind of companionship that kids everywhere yearned for.  She was the perfect dog, and turned millions of kids into dog lovers.  Even though I've ended up with my own Lassie a time or two, and I treasure those memories for all they are worth, I will always have a special place in my heart for Lassie herself, and all she represents.