Book Review and Giveaway - Glow by Jessica Maria Tuccelli

Synopsis:  In the autumn of 1941, Amelia J. McGee, a young woman of Cherokee and Scotch-Irish descent, and an outspoken pamphleteer for the NAACP, hastily sends her daughter, Ella, alone on a bus home to Georgia in the middle of the night—a desperate measure that proves calamitous when the child encounters two drifters and is left for dead on the side of the road.

Ella awakens in the homestead of Willie Mae Cotton, a wise root doctor and former slave, and her partner, Mary-Mary Freeborn, tucked deep in the Takatoka Forest. As Ella heals, the secrets of her lineage are revealed.

Shot through with Cherokee lore and hoodoo conjuring, Glow transports us from Washington, D.C., on the brink of World War II to the Blue Ridge frontier of 1836, from the parlors of antebellum manses to the plantation kitchens where girls are raised by women who stand in as mothers. As the land with all its promise and turmoil passes from one generation to the next, Ella's ancestral home turns from safe haven to mayhem and back again.

First Line:  No matter what trouble he stirs up, what law he breaks, Obidiah Bounds will always be her cool sip of hyssop nectar on a sunny day.

Random Quote: A person can survive even when they afraid all the time, but terror is one thirsty thief.  He takes his toll, he's crafty, he spreads his wings wide and soars across the sky and you don't hear a thing.  He's blind, but he'll find you, he got a fabulous sense of smell, and when he do, he will drink you in, drop by drop.

Review:  It is very difficult to write multi-generational family tales - add to the challenge covering about 100 years of the family and doing this well is quite a feat.  Glow succeeds at this challenge on every level.

Blue Ridge, GA

 A debut author, Ms. Tucelli writes well of many mysterious things.  All lives are, after all, mysterious.  Shifting perspectives and voices and dialects mixed in with folklore and good old-fashioned hoodoo, Glow reminds me of spirituals, but especially of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess with all its recitatives and soaring voices - snapshots of moments in unknown and forgotten lives.  I especially liked that she wove in the story of the displacement of the Cherokee and of the mission schools that took away the lore and culture of entire generations.  My great-grandmother was Cherokee and raised in a mission school and I witnessed this as a child.  She and my great-grandfather were also part of the Oklahoma Land Rush, but that's a whole 'nother story.

At a time when it has become fashionable again to treat various groups of people as second-class citizens and to disregard the stories of the people we kill in wartime, Glow is a cool drink of sweet tea on a summer day.  Highly recommended.

FTC Disclosure:  Advance copy from publisher for review

Publishing Information:  Viking Adult - March 15, 2012

Format:  Hardback

Rating:  ★★★★

Book Giveaway

I'm pleased to be able to giveaway two (2) copies of this lovely book - one is the copy I very gently read, the other is an extra from the publisher.  Just fill out the form below to enter.  US and Canada only.  No PO boxes, please.  Winners announced March 25.

Let's Talk About Corned Beef

Corned Beef Brisket (image source)

Since it's St. Paddy's Day I thought I would diverge from things related to what I'm reading now and honor the holiday with two of my most favorite dishes, both made from corned beef.

What is corned beef, anyway?  According to The Joy of Cooking:

The term "corned" is a reference to the kernel-sized crystals of salt used to cure large cuts of beef brisket.  Spices such as garlic, allspice, black pepper, and ay leaves were also added.

My two favorite ways to eat corned beef are Corned Beef and Cabbage, and Corned Beef Hash so that's what I'll share today:

Corned Beef and Cabbage (image source)

Corned Beef and Cabbage
from Joy of Cooking
Yield:  8 to 10 servings

Wash under running water to remove the surface brine:
     One 4-lb corned beef brisket
Bring enough water to to cover the brisket to a boil in a large pot.  Add the meat and:
     20 black peppercorns
     2 bay leaves
Simmer, covered, until a fork can easily penetrate to the center, about 3 hours, if desired, add to the pot for the last 15 to 30 minutes of cooking:
     1 head green cabbage, cut into wedges
Remove the meat and let stand for 15 minutes.  Drain the cabbage and keep warm.  Cut the brisket into thin slices, against the grain and remove to a platter. Serve with:
     Horseradish Cream (recipe to follow) or prepared horseradish
     Coarse whole-grain mustard and/or hot English-style mustard
     Boiled New Potatoes (recipe to follow)

Horseradish Cream (image source)

Horseradish Cream
from Joy of Cooking
Yield:  1 ½ cup

Beat in a medium bowl to stiff peaks:
     ½ cup heavy cream
Gradually beat in:
     3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice or distilled white or cider vinegar
     2 tablespoons grated fresh or drained prepared  horseradish
     ¼ teaspon salt
     Pinch of ground red pepper
Chill for 30 to 60 minutes.  Stir gently before serving.

Boiled New Potatoes (image source)

Boiled New Potatoes
from Joy of Cooking
Yield:  4 servings

Cook:
     12 small new potatoes, washed
in water, covered, letting water come to a boil, until tender, 10 to 20 minutes .  If desired, remove the skins.
Serve with:
     Chopped parsley, mint, or chives
Or melt in a skillet:
     3 to 6 tablespoons butter
Add the potatoes and shake them gently over low heat until well coated.  Serve sprinkled with:
     Salt and black pepper to taste
     Chopped parsley or chopped dill or fennel sprigs
Or add to the butter in the pan:
     3 to 4 tablespoons grated fresh horseradish
and shake the potatoes until covered.  This last is particularly choice with cold cuts.

So, there you have it - a full-on St. Patrick's Day meal - just add Guiness and some Jameson's whiskey and you're good to go.

Now we get to the real point of cooking corned beef - making and eating corned beef hash.  Here's how:

Corned Beef Hash  (image source)

Corned Beef Hash
from Joy of Cooking
Yield:  4 to 5 servings

Heat in a heavy 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat:
     3 tablespoons vegetable oil
Stir in:
     1 large onion, chopped
Cook, stirring with a spatula, until the onion is just beginning to brown, 3 to 5 minutes.  Stir in:
     1 pound peeled cooked or raw potatoes, cut into ½-inch dice (about 3 cups)
If the potatoes are cooked, simply toss to coat with oil.  If they are raw, cook, stirring frequently, until about half-tender, 5 to 7 minutes.  Add:
     2 to 3 cups corned beef cut into ½-inch cubes
Cook, stirring, until the potatoes and meat are browned around the edges, about 5 minutes.  Stir in:
     3 tablespoons beef or chicken broth or water, or 2 tablespoons catsup, tomato sauce, chili sauce, or meat gravy mixed with 2 tablespoons broth or water
     (½ teaspoon dried thyme or rubbed sage)
     Salt and black pepper to taste
Turn the heat down to medium.  Cook, stirring frequently, until all the ingredients are nicely browned, 5 to 10-minutes.  For a cake, firmly press the hash into a cake with the back of the spatula, then cook, pressing occasionally, until the bottom is well browned, 10 to 15 minutes.  Loosen the bottom of the cake with the spatula, then slide or invert onto a serving plate and cut into wedges.  Serve with:
    Fried or poached eggs

I always eat my corned beef hash with a runny poached egg - try it once (if you haven't already), it's pretty tasty.

Happy St. Paddy's Day to you all - however you choose to celebrate it!

Weekend Cooking  is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews,  recipes,   random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs.  If your  post  is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and  link up   anytime over the weekend. Please link to your specific post,  not your   blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Maureen O'Hara

Book Review - Partials by Dan Wells

Synopsis:  Humanity is all but extinguished after a war with partials--engineered organic beings identical to humans--has decimated the world’s population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island. The threat of the partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to the disease in over a decade. Humanity’s time is running out.

When sixteen-year-old Kira learns of her best friend’s pregnancy, she’s determined to find a solution. Then one rash decision forces Kira to flee her community with the unlikeliest of allies. As she tries desperately to save what is left of her race, she discovers that the survival of both humans and partials rests in her attempts to answer questions of the war’s origin that she never knew to ask.

First Line:  Newborn #485GA18M died on June 30, 2076, at 6:07 in the morning.

Random Quote:  "If you must, he voted for," said Isolde.  "He wasn't for sacrificing personal rights to privacy, but he didn't want to stand in the way of stopping another attack."  She shrugged.  "I don't think he's right, but I don't have any better suggestions.  If the Voice have started kidnapping people now, who knows what they'll do next?"

Review: I took Partials for review on a whim.  Much of the YA dystopian genre is just awful, but the plot description reminded me in ways of Blood Red Road by Moira Young - a book that I adored - so I thought I'd give it a whirl.  This was a great choice since this booked grabbed me right away and kept me reading everywhere I could right on through to the end.  I then put the book down and began wondering when the next one in the series is due.

Dan Wells combines elements of Isaac Asimov, the original Star Trek, and Margaret Atwood into a stew of utterly relevant paranoia.  Reading this felt a lot like reading The Handmaid's Tale when it first came out during the Reagan era.  At a time when the Evangelical Christian right-wing was gaining power Atwood's story was terrifying because it felt so very possible.  In these days of paranoia over terrorism, disease and at a time when some individuals are working to actively disenfranchise everyone who isn't white and male, this reads all too familiar, as well.

Abandoned Long Island Railroad (image source)

 The Asimov elements have to do, of course, with the genetically engineered humans/robots who rise against their creators to gain their freedom by releasing a weaponized virus that kills most of the humans on the planet and makes the rest unable to reproduce.  Year after year the age of required pregnancy is lowered and year after year, baby after baby, newborns die and die and die.  Research is stagnant and humanity is relying on fascist political control over the bodies of the women who are left in the world.  The hope, I suppose, is that the problem will be overcome by sheer force of numbers - a completely unlikely scenario.

Kira Walker, the heroine, 16 years old at a time when the government will soon sentence girls her age to a lifetime of pregnancy and dead babies, decides to do something concrete about the problem.  With the help of her friends, she goes out into the wilds and steals a Partial to attempt to track down the source of the virus and a way to cure it.  Along the way she learns a lot about herself and about the essentials of diversity in any world (c.f., the original Star Trek with its message of unity despite race or species).

This was an excellent read and I'll admit that I am on pins and needles to read the next one in the series.  Highly recommended.

FTC Disclosure:  Advance copy from publisher for review

Publishing Information:  Balzer + Bray - February 28, 2012

Format:  Printed Matter

Rating:  ★★★★★

Reading Challenges:  2012 Mammoth Book Challenge (472 pages)

Book Review - The Glass Rainbow by James Lee Burke

Synopsis:  James Lee Burke's eagerly awaited new novel finds Detective Dave Robicheaux back in New Iberia, Louisiana, and embroiled in the most harrowing and dangerous case of his career. Seven young women in neighboring Jefferson Davis Parish have been brutally murdered. While the crimes have all the telltale signs of a serial killer, the death of Bernadette Latiolais, a high school honor student, doesn't fit: she is not the kind of hapless and marginalized victim psychopaths usually prey upon. Robicheaux and his best friend, Clete Purcel, confront Herman Stanga, a notorious pimp and crack dealer whom both men despise. When Stanga turns up dead shortly after a fierce beating by Purcel, in front of numerous witnesses, the case takes a nasty turn, and Clete's career and life are hanging by threads over the abyss.

Adding to Robicheaux's troubles is the matter of his daughter, Alafair, on leave from Stanford Law to put the finishing touches on her novel. Her literary pursuit has led her into the arms of Kermit Abelard, celebrated novelist and scion of a once prominent Louisiana family whose fortunes are slowly sinking into the corruption of Louisiana's subculture. Abelard's association with bestselling ex-convict author Robert Weingart, a man who uses and discards people like Kleenex, causes Robicheaux to fear that Alafair might be destroyed by the man she loves. As his daughter seems to drift away from him, he wonders if he has become a victim of his own paranoia. But as usual, Robicheaux's instincts are proven correct and he finds himself dealing with a level of evil that is greater than any enemy he has confronted in the past.

First Line:  The room I had rented in an old part of Natchez seemed more reflective of New Orleans than a river town in Mississippi.

Random Quote:  Sometimes I thought I heard cries and shouts and the sounds of musket fire in the mist, because the Union soldiers who marched through Acadiana were turned loose upon the civilian populace as a lesson in terror.  The rape of Negro women became commonplace.  Northerners have never understood the nature of the crimes that were committed in their names, no more than neocolonials can understand the enmity their government creates in theirs.  the pastoral solemnity of a Civil War graveyard doesn't come close to suggesting the reality of war or the crucible of pain in which a soldier lives and dies.

Review:  James Lee Burke has always been a go-to writer for me.  His Dave Robichaux series, in particular, has given me many hours of entertainment and an appreciation of writing place that I did not have before.  Set in southern Louisiana, these books tell the story of Dave Robichaux and his friend and former partner in the New Orleans Police Department, Clete Purcel.  Both men are deeply flawed, alcoholics in and out of recovery, and men who stand by their own code of honor as they become involved in the crimes they encounter.

Louisiana Musicians, New Iberia, 1938 (image source)

 Burke understands southern Louisiana - the look, the feel, the smells, the sounds, and its people.  His books always present nuanced characters and plots that are deeply embedded within decades of Louisiana history.  He does not romanticize, but he does not denigrate, either.  Rather he celebrates the good of a life that was, the bad of that life, and the present as we all watch places like New Iberia and New Orleans swept off the map by hurricanes and government neglect.

Burke never ceases to make me want to read over and over again and he always makes me homesick for the South with all its flawed beauty.  Glass Rainbow is one of the best in this series - if you're a fan, read it.  If you're not a fan, I envy you.  Start at the beginning of the series and work your way through - you won't be sorry.

FTC Disclosure:  I bought it for myself

Publishing Information:   Kindle Edition - July 13, 2010

Format:  Kindle

Rating:  ★★★★★

Reading Challenges:  2012 Mammoth Book Challenge (560 pages), Mystery and Suspense Challenge

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Miz B of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) random teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

When the girls grew weary of the limited possibilities of their life in Mira Road, they would want to get out, even if for a brief time, and every once in a while that meant heading to the red light district of Kamatipura.  Apsara was never invited along and had she been she would have resisted; Leela's mother was enjoying her freedom by exerting herself as little as possible.

In My Mailbox Monday

Bombay Mailboxes (image source)

In March, Mailbox Monday is hosted by Anna at Diary of an Eccentric. In My Mailbox is hosted by The Story Siren.  These are the places where we brag about share the books that arrived in our mailboxes each week.  As always, I try to find a mailbox or mailish thing that is somehow associated with what I'm reading right now.  I'm reading Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars by Sonia Faleiro so I found some Bombay mailboxes.

Here's what crossed the threshold this week:

Printed Matter (from publishers or literary publicity agencies):

Ship of Souls by Zetta Elliott.  When 11-year-old Dmitri loses his mother to breast cancer, he finds himself taken in by an elderly white woman, Mrs. Martin. D loves to watch birds and, while in the park, is amazed to find an injured bird that can talk. He takes it home and soon learns there are malevolent forces inhabiting the region beneath Prospect Park and they are hunting for the bird; Nuru is a life force that has been kept hostage by the earthbound spirits who are ghosts of soldiers that died in the Revolutionary War. Nuru's mission is to guide the ship that will carry the souls of the dead back to her realm. D has been chosen as Nuru's host, and must carry the bird from Brooklyn to the African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan where the dead await deliverance.

Horten's Miraculous Mechanisms: Magic, Mystery, & a Very Strange Adventure  by Lissa Evans.   As if being small for his age and also having S. Horten as his name isn't bad enough, now 10-year-old Stuart is forced to move far away from all his friends. But on his very first day in his new home, Stuart's swept up in an extraordinary adventure: the quest to find his great-uncle Tony--a famous magician who literally disappeared off the face of the earth--and Tony's marvelous, long-lost workshop.  Along the way, Stuart reluctantly accepts help from the annoying triplets next door… and encounters trouble from another magician who's also desperate to get hold of Tony's treasures.

Coming Out Can Be Murder by Renee James.  Bobbi Logan's life and career begin to spiral downward when she comes out as a transgendered woman. But the gutsy hairdresser is determined to live her "new life" authentically, even as she is drawn into the investigation of her brutally murdered friend. The Chicago police have all but said they're not interested in the death of a "tranny" and the media has failed to report it. As she follows a trail ofevidence through the shadowy underground of the Windy City, Bobbi is led to John Strand, a seductive powerbroker. Coming face-to-face with the number one suspect can only lead to one thing ... murder. But who will it be?

The Company of the Dead by David J. Kowalski.  A mysterious man appears aboard the Titanic on its doomed voyage. His mission? To save the ship.  The result of his efforts is a world where the United States never entered World War I, thus launching the secret history of the 20th Century.  April 2012. Joseph Kennedy, relation of John F. Kennedy, lives in an America occupied on the East Coast by the Germans and on the West Coast by the Japanese. He is one of six people who can restore history to its rightful order -- even though it will mean his own death.  A magnificent alternate history, set against the backdrop of one of the the greatest maritime disasters of the 20th century. 

Vonnegut:  Novels & Stories 1950-1962 by Kurt Vonnegut.  Before winning international fame with Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut was a master of the drugstore paperback and the popular short story. This authoritative collection of his brilliant early work opens with Player Piano (1952), a Metropolis-like parable of breakneck technological innovation and its effect on those it robs of their livelihoods. The Sirens of Titan (1959), the interplanetary adventures of the world's wealthiest and most despised man, is both a pulp fiction space opera and a satire on the vanity of human striving. The confessions of a German-American double agent well placed among the Nazi elite, Mother Night (1962) is a cautionary tale with a famous moral: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." Here too are six of Vonnegut's best short stories, gems that display his matchless talent for hilarious invention and caustic social criticism.


Kindle (from NetGalley)

The Best Horror of the Year (Volume 4), edited by Ellen Datlow.  With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straubb, and many others, and featuring Datlow's comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect-and enjoy.  


Happy reading, all!

Let's Talk about Chutney

Since my husband is native Hawaiian
it seems fitting to include this picture
(image source)

I'm reading Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars by Sonia Faleiro so I decided I'd talk about chutney.

Chutney was a popular item in my family - either jarred or homemade.  It's so good on so many things.

When my husband and I were first together, my father sent him cookbooks - usually vegetarian cookbooks because my husband ate very little meat at the time.  One of the best gifts we got was Lord Krishna's Cuisine:  The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking by Yamuna Devi with illustrations by David Baird.  This is a winner of an IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) award and is one of the seminal cookbooks in its field - think of Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking or Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and you'll understand the league it's in.

At the time we were very early into our relationship and each doing things to impress the other.  We still do that, but less and less due mostly to the deepening of the relationship and all the ways the usual things are great just because we do them together.  Lord Krishna's Cusine is encyclopedia and its recipes are complex, but worth the trouble.  My husband planned, shopped for, and made us a huge Indian meal that was really delicious and pretty much an all-day affair for both of us since I helped in a pot girl sort of way - "Honey, hand me that.  Here, chop this.  I need this washed."  Part of that meal was this truly yummy mango chutney that we had the next night on top of crab cakes I made with Dungeness crab because I was also trying to impress him.  It was delicious.  Here's the recipe:

Shredded Mango and Coconut Chutney
AAM NARIYAL CHATNI

Preparation and marinating time (after assembling ingredients):  1-3 hours
Makes:  1½ cups

2 medium-sized firm unripe mangoes (about 2 lbs) - if you prefer a sweeter chutney, ripe is also very good
¼ cup dried or fresh coconut ribbons
1 tbs diced dried fruit, such as papaya or apricot
1 tbs each orange and lime juice
½ tsp salt
⅛ tsp cayenne pepper or paprika
1-2 hot green chilies, halved, seeded, and slivered
2 tbs sesame or coconut oil (I prefer sesame)
1 tsb black mustard seeds
2 tbs finely chopped fresh coriander

1. Peel the mangoes with a vegetable peeler or a paring knife.  Coarsely shred the fruit and discard the seed.  Combine the mangoes with the coconunt, dried fruit, juices, salt, cayenne or paprika, and green chilies in a serving bowl, gently toss, cover, and marinate for ½ hour.  It can be refrigerated for up to 6 hours before serving.
2. Heat the oil in a small pan over moderate heat until hot but not smoking.  Drop in the black mustard seeds and fry until they turn gray and sputter (keep a lid handy to catch flying seeds).  Pour this into the salad, add the fresh coriander, toss to mix, and serve.

Weekend Cooking  is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews,  recipes,   random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs.  If your  post  is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and  link up   anytime over the weekend. Please link to your specific post,  not your   blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post.

We Have a Winner! - Enchantments by Kathryn Harrison

(image source)

Once again consultation with the the deities at Random.Org has revealed a winner of my latest book giveaway.

*drum roll*

Rita Premo!  C'mon down!  You're the winner of a copy of Enchantments by Kathryn Harrison!

I have notified the publisher and the book will be sent from them directly.

Thanks to everyone who entered and who visited my blog!  Stay tuned for lots more on books.

Book Review - The Westies by T.J. English

Synopsis:  Even among the Mob, the Westies were feared. Out of a partnership between two sadistic thugs, James Coonan and Mickey Featherstone, the gang rose out of the inferno of Hell's Kitchen, a decaying tenderloin slice of New York City's West Side. They became the most notorious gang in the history of organized crime, excelling in extortion, numbers running, loansharking, and drug peddling. Upping the ante on depravity, their specialty was execution by dismemberment. Though never numbering more than a dozen members, their reign lasted for almost twenty years-until their own violent natures got the best of them, precipitating a downfall that would become as infamous as their notorious ascension into the annals of crime.

First Line:  At approximately 6:30 A.M. on the morning of November 4, 1987, Francis Thomas "Mickey" Featherstone awoke in a cold sweat.

Random Quote:  The most dominant symbol of their lives was not J.F.K. riding proudly along Pennsylvania Avenue on Inauguration Day, but J.F.K. slumped over in the back seat of a limousine in Dallas, his brains splatteredall over his wife Jackie's dress.

Review:  T.J. English is one of the best writers of true crime reporting that is a leap above the usual cheap paperbacks full of gory pictures that you see at the grocery store.  His books are well-written, well-researched, and as much about the context of the crime or organized crime group that he is writing about.

The Westies is his first book.  In it you can see him working through all the things that will make his later books so fascinating.  While he's written most about organized crime, he's continuing to expand his repertoire into further fields.  Since Whitey Bulger was captured I've been wanting to go back and read this one since English wrote about Bulger in another great book, Paddywhacked.  It was very hard to find a copy when I discovered English and the one copy I did find was, shall we say, extremely used - ultimately the copy was so filthy it made it hard to want to read it.

Mickey Featherstone

 I was very happy to see that the book had been published in a Kindle format and really dug into things this time.  The Westies is about a group of semi-organized criminals who operated out of the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood in New York (now called Clinton).  They grew up in an atmosphere were crime was a way of life and they became one of the most notorious gangs in history.  For twenty years they ruled with an iron fist - dismembering, murdering, selling drugs, robbing, loansharking - the list goes on and on.  They terrified the Italian mob so much that they made an alliance with The Westies in order to try to tamp down the violence that caused a lot of unwanted attention.

The Westies were a phenomenon of their changing time - the world they grew up in and into was a different place than the world of their parents.  Much of their extreme brutality can be explained by the quote above along with exposure to the Vietnam War and their use and abuse of cocaine along with many other drugs.

Market Diner - Westie's Hangout (image source)

They were brought down by Mickey Featherstone, a long-time member and right-hand man to James "Jimmy" Coonan, the nominal leader of the crew.  Featherstone is a complicated figure and the tale of his association with the Westies is a fascinating one.

One warning:  This is not a book for the squeamish.  The Westies were infamous for their brutal violence and it would be impossible to write about them without writing about that in detail.

The Westies is a great place to start with English's writing and an interesting beginning for an author who only gets better with each of his books.

FTC Disclosure:  I bought it for myself

Publishing Information:  Kindle edition (Open Road) - November 15, 2011

Format:  Kindle

Rating:  ★★★

Reading Challenges:  Eclectic Reading Challenge, Mystery and Suspense Challenge, Non-Fiction/Non-Memoir Challenge

Book Review - The Burning Soul by John Connelly

Synopsis:  Randall Haight has a secret: when he was a teenager, he and his friend killed a 14-year-old girl.

Randall did his time and built a new life in the small Maine town of Pastor's Bay, but somebody has discovered the truth about Randall. He is being tormented by anonymous messages, haunting reminders of his past crime, and he wants private detective Charlie Parker to make it stop.

But another 14-year-old girl has gone missing, this time from Pastor's Bay, and the missing girl's family has its own secrets to protect. Now Parker must unravel a web of deceit involving the police, the FBI, a doomed mobster named Tommy Morris, and Randall Haight himself.

Because Randall Haight is telling lies ...

First Line:  Gray sea, gray sky, but fire in the woods and the trees aflame.

Random Quote:  The thought of my daughter moving through moonlit woods, sometimes watching her father from the darkness, and leaving messages for him on the windowpanes (for that was what she did when she was alive, drawing hearts and faces and dogs on my car windshield when I wasn't around, so I would know that she was thinking of me) brought with it both comfort and a deep, unmanning sadness.

Review:  Anyone who's read this blog is probably aware that John Connolly is huge favorite of mine.  His Charlie Parker series is must-read both for its writing and for Connolly's wonderful, dark, Irish storytelling skills.

The Burning Soul is the latest in the series and it's a good one, although maybe not a great one.  I still want more Louis and Angel and I want more of the tone that pervades my favorite of the series (and the first one that I read) Dark Hollow (the second in the series).  Good John Connolly is always better than 99.9% of what you'll read so I'm not damning with faint praise.

Northern Maine (image source)

 Set in the deep, dark, and mysterious parts of Maine, Charlie Parker and his cohorts are drawn into a mystery surrounding the disappearance of a young girl and the scrutiny this brings to Randall Haight, a citizen of a small town living in quiet anonymity.  Mr. Haight has a big secret and it's coming back to bite him and everyone around him.

Charlie becomes obsessed with finding the girl and doing right by another girl who was raped and murdered long ago and who seems to be haunting him along with the spirit of his dead daughter.  There's plenty of mystery and atmosphere to go around, but the sense of urgency is just slightly off and things are just slightly more predictable than I expect of Mr. Connolly.

A good entry in a great series.

FTC Disclosure:  I bought it for myself

Publishing Information:  Kindle edition - September 1, 2011

Format:  Kindle

Rating:  ★★★

Reading Challenges:  Mystery and Suspense Challenge

Book Review - The Enchantments by Kathryn Harrison

Synopsis:  St. Petersburg, 1917. After Rasputin’s body is pulled from the icy waters of the Neva River, his eighteen-year-old daughter, Masha, is sent to live at the imperial palace with Tsar Nikolay and his family—including the headstrong Prince Alyosha. Desperately hoping that Masha has inherited Rasputin’s miraculous healing powers, Tsarina Alexandra asks her to tend to Aloysha, who suffers from hemophilia, a blood disease that keeps the boy confined to his sickbed, lest a simple scrape or bump prove fatal.

Two months after Masha arrives at the palace, the tsar is forced to abdicate, and Bolsheviks place the royal family under house arrest. As Russia descends into civil war, Masha and Alyosha grieve the loss of their former lives, finding solace in each other’s company. To escape the confinement of the palace, they tell stories—some embellished and some entirely imagined—about Nikolay and Alexandra’s courtship, Rasputin’s many exploits, and the wild and wonderful country on the brink of an irrevocable transformation. In the worlds of their imagination, the weak become strong, legend becomes fact, and a future that will never come to pass feels close at hand.

First Line:  Behold:  in the beginning there was everything, just as there is now.

Random Quote:  Tsar Nikolay was finishing what he'd started the day after Alyosha's fall and the bleeding it caused:  cutting down a grove of poplars.  Trees he'd planted himself, as a boy, on the periphery of the horse cemetary where Alyosha's pony, Bucephalus, had been laid to rest like all faithful servants of the Romanovs, under a proper headstone carved with his name and the dates of his birth and death.

Review:  I wanted to read Enchantments because I've always liked Kathryn's Harrison's work.  Her cool, elegant prose combines with her approach to story makes her an interesting, if sometimes difficult, writer.  I was curious about how she'd handle the Romanovs through the eyes of Rasputin's daughter.  I admittedly know a lot more about the other side of the Russian Revolution so I was curious about the Tsar, his family, and the Rasputin family.

If you're looking for straight historical fiction that sticks with the accepted facts and agreed upon story, this is not the book for you.  Rather this is an exploration of history and fact filtered through the eyes of Masha (Rasputin's daughter) and Alyosha (the Tsar's hemophiliac son).  More than anything it is a set of fairy tales that serve to impart history, but also to entertain and provide solace during the time that the Tsar's family was held until their execution (if you're on the left wing side of the Revolution) or assassination (if you're on the right wing side of things).

Romanov family portrait (image source)

 Many things led up to the Russian Revolution - perhaps most of all the extreme difference between how those without lived, and how those with lived.  In the United States of today it is valuable to understand this political dynamic and its potential consequences.

Enchantments is less concerned about the political and social context within which the Romanovs were removed from power (and from life) than it is with the personalities of the various Romanovs.  The possibility that they  might have avoided their fate had they been less interested in soldiering (Tsar Nicolai) and extreme religiosity (Tsarina Alexandra) and more concerned with the actual politics and the style of rule required for survival during the 20th century with all its revolutionary fervor.  Through her stories Masha illustrates the character of the family - good, bad, and ugly - as she simultaneously allows us to watch a relationship between two young people thrown together in a terrible place not of their own choosing.

Tsarevich's Nursey Slide at Tsarskoye Selo (image source)

 Harrison is able to humanize characters that I have always thought of as self-indulgent, decadent, and completely disconnected from the harsh reality that their subjects faced daily.  I still think the Romanovs are all of those things, but they were other things, too and by concentrating on them as individuals in a family I got a more nuanced sense of them.

Harrison has written an evocative and subversive book about the power of story and the ways we can (and do) use it to change our lives.  Her tale gives us a window into a well-known story from a unique point of view and this is the novel's great strength.

FTC Disclosure:  Advance copy from publisher as part of the author's virtual book tour through TLC Book Tours

Publishing Information:  Random House - March 6, 2012

Format:  Kindle e-galley

Rating:  ★★★★

Reading Challenges:  Eclectic Reading Challenge

I am pleased to a part of Ms. Harrison's virtual book tour through TLC Book Tours.  Be sure to stop by the other blogs on the tours for lots of different opinions!

About Kathryn Harrison

Kathryn Harrison is the author of the memoirs The Kiss and The Mother Knot. She has also written the novels Envy, The Seal Wife, The Binding Chair, Poison, Exposure, and Thicker Than Water; a travel memoir, The Road to Santiago; a biography, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux; and a collection of essays, Seeking Rapture. She lives in New York with her husband, the novelist Colin Harrison, and their children.

Learn more about Kathryn and her work at her website, kathrynharrison.com.
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Kathryn Harrison’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Monday, March 5th:  Unabridged Chick
Tuesday, March 6th:  Chaotic Compendiums
Wednesday, March 7th:  The Literate Housewife Review
Thursday, March 8th:  Dolce Bellezza
Monday, March 12th:  Broken Teepee
Tuesday, March 13th:  Luxury Reading
Wednesday, March 14th:  Library of Clean Reads
Thursday, March 15th:  The Lost Entwife
Monday, March 19th:  Let Them Read Books
Wednesday, March 21st:  Stiletto Storytime
Friday, March 23rd:  The Muse in the Fog Book Review
Monday, March 26th:  A Library of My Own
Wednesday, March 28th:  Col Reads
Thursday, March 29th:  Life in Review

Related articles

• 'Enchantments' Of Rasputin's Lion-Taming Daughter (npr.org)
• Let's Talk about Nikolaschkas (chaoticcompendiums.com)

In My Mailbox Monday

Russian mailbox (image source)

In March, Mailbox Monday is hosted by Anna at Diary of an Eccentric. In My Mailbox is hosted by The Story Siren.  These are the places where we brag about share the books that arrived in our mailboxes each week.  As always, I try to find a mailbox or mailish thing that is somehow associated with what I'm reading right now.  I've been reading Enchantments by Kathryn Harrison so I looked for a Russian mailbox.

Here's what I got this week:

Printed Matter (from publishers)

Hide Me Among the Graves by Tim Powers.  Winter, 1862. A malevolent spirit roams the cold and gloomy streets of Victorian London, the vampiric ghost of John Polidori, the onetime physician of the mad, bad and dangerous Romantic poet Lord Byron. Polidori is also the supernatural muse to his neice and nephew, poet Christina Rossetti and her artist brother Dante Gabriel.  But Polidori's taste for debauchery has grown excessive. He is determined to possess the life and soul of an innocent young girl, the daughter of a veterinarian and a reformed prostitute he once haunted. And he has resurrected Dante's dead wife, transforming her into a horrifying vampire. The Rossettis know the time has come – Polidori must be stopped. Joining forces with the girl's unlikely parents, they are plunged into a supernatural London underworld whose existence they never suspected.

Before the Poison by Peter Robinson.  Through years of success in Hollywood composing music for Oscar-winning films, Chris Lowndes always imagined he would come full circle, home to Yorkshire with his beloved wife Laura.   Now he's back in the Yorkshire Dales, but Laura is dead, and Chris needs to make a new life for himself. The isolated house he buys sight unseen should give him the space to come to terms with his grief and the quiet to allow him to work. Kilnsgate House turns out to be rather more than he expected, however. A man died there, sixty years ago. His wife was convicted of murder. And something is pulling Chris deeper and deeper into the story of Grace Elizabeth Fox, who was hanged by the neck until she was dead ...


Kindle Books (bought for me by me)

Worth Dying For:  A Reacher Novel by Lee Child.  Lee Child follows the electrifying 61 Hours with his latest Reacher thriller--a story that hits the ground running and then accelerates all the way to a colossal showdown.  There's deadly trouble in the corn country of Nebraska . . . and Jack Reacher walks right into it. First he falls foul of the Duncans, a local clan that has terrified an entire county into submission. But it's the unsolved case of a missing child, already decades-old, that Reacher can't let go.  The Duncans want Reacher gone--and it's not just past secrets they're trying to hide. They're awaiting a secret shipment that's already late--and they have the kind of customers no one can afford to annoy. For as dangerous as the Duncans are, they're just the bottom of a criminal food chain stretching halfway around the world.  For Reacher, it would have made much more sense to keep on going, to put some distance between himself and the hard-core trouble that's bearing down on him.  For Reacher, that was also impossible. 

The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman.  Historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Tuchman has brought to life again the people and events that led up to World War I. With attention to fascinating detail, and an intense knowledge of her subject and its characters, Ms. Tuchman reveals, for the first time, just how the war started, why, and why it could have been stopped but wasn't.


Kindle Books (from publishers via NetGalley)

Holliday by Nick Bowden (writer) and Doug Dabbs (artist).  Tombstone is a city as bleak as its name suggests and for most, life depends on the gun kept in their waistband. When Doc Holliday, a gambler with twisted morals and a deadly reputation, arrives, his presence upsets a fragile balance in the fractured urban center. The gunman and his allies are a threat to the ruling powers and eventually the long simmering tension boils over. Deception surrounding Holliday and a gruesome double homicide serves as the catalyst for war.


Kindle Books (from the author):

Dead By My Side by Gloria Galloway.  Sacramento, Calif. – Julia and Tony, homicide detectives for more than twelve years, make quite the pair with her long legs and his rugged good looks. They’re an unstoppable team, both fiercely loyal to friends, family and each other. But when Julia is killed in the line of duty, Tony is left alone to pick up the pieces in Gloria Galloway’s thriller, “Dead By My Side.” While Tony is getting used to work as a solo detective, Julia’s spirit appears to him. He tries to ignore this ghost-like version, but it soon becomes clear that his late partner won’t disappear until he agrees to join forces again. Now, with his spirit sidekick in tow, Tony faces one of the most difficult challenges of his career: a sadistic killer on the loose. Julia and Tony must put a stop to the rising body count and learn to lean on one another, even after death.