The Printed Page

Jill at Breaking the Spine hosts Waiting on Wednesday. I love Waiting on Wednesday but find that I don’t always have something to post. Just as publishing runs in cycles so do the books that I’m eagerly anticipating. So when I don’t have a Waiting on Wednesday book I’d thought I’d post Cover Attraction. I’m a very visual person and love beautiful cover art. It doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll read the book but at least I might stop and take a peek instead of walking right on by. This week’s Cover Attraction is:

Title: Bleeding Heart Square Author: Andrew Taylor Publication date: March ’09

From Fantastic Fiction: ‘If Philippa Penhow hadn’t gone to Bleeding Heart Square on that January day, you and perhaps everyone else might have lived happily ever after…’ It’s 1934, and the decaying London cul-de-sac of Bleeding Heart Square is an unlikely place of refuge for aristocratic Lydia Langstone. But as she flees her abusive marriage there is only one person she can turn to – the genteelly derelict Captain Ingleby-Lewis, currently lodging at no 7. However, unknown to Lydia, a dark mystery haunts 7 Bleeding Heart Square. What happened to Miss Penhow, the middle-aged spinster who owns the house and who vanished four years earlier? Why is a seedy plain-clothes policeman obsessively watching the square? What is making struggling journalist Rory Wentwood so desperate to contact Miss Penhow? And why are parcels of rotting hearts being sent to Joseph Serridge, the last person to see Miss Penhow alive…? Legend has it the Devil once danced in Bleeding Heart Square – but is there now a new and sinister presence lurking in its shadows?

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What’s your favorite cover attraction this week?

Today’s pondering:

I’ve been reading Shanghai Girls by Lisa See over the last couple of days and I’m a little over half-way through. I absolutely loved Peony in Love and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Both Peony and Snow Flower are great examples of historical fiction transporting a reader to time and place. Those books completely captured my imagination and attention. The world of ancient China is utterly fascinating and comes vividly to life in Ms. See’s talented story telling. This is where Shanghai Girls differs from Peony and Snow Flower.

In Shanghai Girls Ms. See leaves behind the China readers have come to know and moves to modern day Shanghai and the United States (1930s). I’ve been following the lives of sisters Pearl and May. While their parents are fairly traditional these two sisters are modern in dress, mannerisms and world views. They are known as ‘beautiful-girls’ posing for wall calendars and promotional product advertising. They earn money, dress in western clothing and go out with friends. They are living the good life until the world starts crashing around them when their father must sell everything and arranges marriages for Pearl and May to pay off a serious gambling debt. This plan doesn’t go over well with the sisters and they have plans of their own. Unfortunately for Pearl and May things go from bad to worse. Shanghai is bombed and invaded by the Japanese as the sisters and their mother flee for their lives. The journey from Shanghai to the United States is horror-filled and treacherous. They lose everything except each other.

Upon reaching the US the sisters are detained by immigration. They spend months trying to gain entry, due in some part to their own deception, eventually reuniting with their ‘husbands’.  But life in the United States isn’t the bed roses they believed it would be. The adjustments are numerous and rocky. The sisters share a devastating secret that will shatter the foundations of the shaky world they’ve managed to build if it’s uncovered. The sisters have only each other in this foreign land. I’ll stop here and not giveaway any more of the story.

This book is a bit of a departure from her last two. Because of the modern story line I’m not as enthralled as I was with Peony and Snow Flower. Don’t get me wrong it is a very good book and I’m enjoying it immensely. Even though Pearl and May lead modern lives that doesn’t make them any less compelling characters than her other leading ladies, just different. It’s a testament to Ms. See’s writing skills that she moves seamlessly between these worlds blending traditional with modern. I’ll admit I miss the traditionalism, the ancient history and the mystic beliefs of the previous two books. Personally I would love to see her next book go back to ancient China but if you enjoyed Peony or Snow Flower I believe you’ll also enjoy Shanghai Girls. I’m recommending it to my f2f bc ladies.

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The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it. ~ James Bryce

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If you’re new to Mailbox Monday welcome! Thank you to everyone who stops by Mailbox Monday. Whether you comment or visit I appreciate your taking the time to drop in.

My mailbox had some goodies for me last week.

Historical fiction ~ False Colours by Georgette Heyer. (Amazon eBook)

Historical fiction ~ A Silent Ocean Away: Colette’s Dominion by Deva Gantt (Amazon)

Historical fiction ~ The Firemaster’s Mistress: A Novel by Christie Dickason (Amazon)

False Colours is the March selection, A Silent Ocean Away is the April selection and The Firemaster’s Mistress is the May selection for the Historical Fiction Lovers book club at Facebook. Contact Jennifer at Literate Housewife for details.

Fiction ~ The Broken Parachute Man by Robert B. Bolin, M.D. (eBook from the publicist)

Mystery ~ Bahama Burnout by Don Burns (eBook from the publicist)

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What books came into your house last week? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Mailbox post or a list of books if you don’t have a blog.

Today’s pondering:

I haven’t done one of these in the last couple of weeks as I’ve been booked with By the Chapter. Now I’m back to reading with no real commitments till mid-March or so. As I got Shanghai Girls by Lisa See in the mail from Katie at Random House last week I decided to partner it with Peony in Love. I read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan for my f2f book club last year and we all loved it.

Shanghai Girls and Peony in Love are totally unrelated but I decided to dive into some more of China’s earlier history first probably because I was so taken with Snow Flower. So I picked up Peony in Love this afternoon and I’m already over a third of the way through it. The lead character, Peony, is 15 years old almost 16, months away from an arranged marriage and obsessed with the play, The Peony Pavilion. She leads a very sheltered life never having been beyond the walled gardens of her home. She spends all her time in the company of women. Except for her father there’s been no exposure to men beyond the occasional unintended chance meeting.

Her 16th birthday is coming up and she misguidedly believes her father has planned a big celebration in her honor, even though birthdays aren’t usually recognized until age 50, including a 3-night production of her favorite opera. As women are kept separate from men, the standard of the day, Peony and her companions hear and watch the play while gathered in a screened off area of the villa compound. While peering through cracks in the screen Peony spies a very handsome, intriguing young man. As the play and the night progresses she steps out for a breath of fresh air into another pavilion and a chance encounter with the man she spied earlier. Over the next 3 days the two continue to slip away and into love. The celebration comes to an end, guests leave and Peony pines for the man she loves but can’t have. I’ve come to the point where destiny and fate take over.

Once again Ms. See has captured the feelings and emotions of place and time. The people come alive as we follow their journeys through these pages. Duty rules above all else and love, at this point, is not part of the picture. I’m as captivated by Peony in Love as I was by Snow Flower. After the finishing the first section of this book I looked up The Peony Pavilion in Wikipedia (link above). I had a bit of trouble following what was happening in the opera so having the information was helpful in understanding this book’s story line. 

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A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man’s mind can get both provocation and privacy. ~ Edward P. Morgan

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Welcome to By the Chapter. This week’s featured book is The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde. Sharing hosting duties with me this week is Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays.

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If you’re not familiar with The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel here’s a little background on the book from Fantastic Fiction:

In Jasper Fforde’s Great Britain, circa 1985, time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection. But when someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature and plucks Jane Eyre from the pages of Brontë’s novel, Thursday is faced with the challenge of her career. Fforde’s ingenious fantasy-enhanced by a Web site that re-creates the world of the novel–unites intrigue with English literature in a delightfully witty mix.

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First a big thank you to Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays. Her Tuesday and Thursday posts carried By the Chapter this week. She wrote some fabulous stuff that gives the reader great insight into exactly what The Eyre Affair is really about. Me – I floundered along as this was a difficult book for me to generate any real interest in. Please take the time to read her posts along with her Friday wrap up which I’m sure will be just as entertaining. I haven’t read it yet as it’s 1230AM Friday morning and most sane people are sleeping right now.

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I never bash, trash or insult books that I don’t like. Just because I don’t particularly care for a book doesn’t mean the story line wasn’t good or that it wasn’t written well. It simply means that the story didn’t appeal to me. Such is the case for most, but not quite all, of The Eyre Affair. I’ve seen descriptions such as weird, wacky, strange, surreal and so on. To a certain degree they all fit. This book is ‘out there’, a bit on the different side of things and over the top. Just as some movies from the Sundance Film Festival appeal to a certain crowd so will The Eyre Affair appeal to a certain kind of reader. From what I can find this is a wildly popular series and rightly so. If you have even the slightest off base sense of humor you’ll probably ‘get’ this book. And there’s where I went wrong. My sense of humor isn’t very skewed and on occasion I’ve been accused of having lost mine by co-workers who are pranksters.

I found myself floundering my way through most of this book. For one I’m not a reader of classic literature. Let’s face it I read lots and lots and lots of popular, main stream, for the masses fiction. The last time I even went near classic literature was the forcing feeding I received my freshman year of college and I’m not telling you how many long years ago that was. That stated many of the literary references zoomed right on by me. For me it was kind of like British humor – I get the joke 15 minutes after everyone else already has it figured out. That leads to the second wrong turn I took with the book – it’s written by a British author. Well silly me should have known that I’d behind from the start. Already I’m off to a rocky start with 2 strikes against me.

But all is not lost as I really enjoyed the last 4 chapters. Yep you got it – the last 4 chapters of a 36 chapter book. See I hung in there, stuck it out and finished every last page and word. Normally I’d have quit but I had a commitment and I was determined to read to the very end. Once our heroine, Thursday Next, goes into Jane Eyre things actually got very interesting and exciting. Things were happening. I wanted to know the outcome. This is what I wanted the other 32 chapters to be. Just a little tiny spoiler here – Japanese tourists traveling into Jane Eyre. Our hero Rochester giving tours of his home to said tourists when his character isn’t needed as part of the story line. I laughed and thought what fun would that be. Though for me personally I want to pop into Gone With The Wind and have a peek at those beautiful plantation homes, southern belles and devilishly handsome gentlemen.

So while this wasn’t the book for me and I won’t be reading any more in this series I don’t regret giving it a try. If you’re the tiny bit interested check it out for yourself as you may be pleasantly surprised by what you find.

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If you’ve read, or are currently reading, The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel please share your thoughts with us.

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This week’s reading scheduling: Monday: The Printed Page Tuesday: Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays Wednesday: The Printed Page Thursday: Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays Friday: The Printed Page/Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays

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This week’s By the Chapter featured book is The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde

Follow today’s discussion over at Jeanne’s blog, Necromancy Never Pays. It’s another fabulous post. She wrote a absolutely wonderful post on Tuesday that gives the reader good insight into this very different book.

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This week’s reading scheduling: Monday: The Printed Page Tuesday: Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays Wednesday: The Printed Page Thursday: Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays Friday: The Printed Page/Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays

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If you’ve read, or are currently reading, The Eyre Affair please stop by and share your thoughts with us.

***

Welcome to By the Chapter. This week’s featured book is The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde. Sharing hosting duties with me this week is Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays.

***

If you’re not familiar with The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel here’s a little background on the book from Fantastic Fiction:

In Jasper Fforde’s Great Britain, circa 1985, time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection. But when someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature and plucks Jane Eyre from the pages of Brontë’s novel, Thursday is faced with the challenge of her career. Fforde’s ingenious fantasy-enhanced by a Web site that re-creates the world of the novel–unites intrigue with English literature in a delightfully witty mix.

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I’m picking up where I left off Monday then having finished through Chapter 5. I’m now up to Chapter 18 which puts me about half-way through the book. So for today…

Thursday has taken a new assignment, still with the Litera Tec division, in her home town of Swindon. Why? Well two reasons – 1) the vision she had of herself while in hospital and 2) because she believes that Hades is still alive and Swindon has become his base of operation. Swindon is a complicated place in Thursday’s life. Not only does her family live here but the man she loved once also lives here.

Thursday’s new partner is Bowden Cable. Bowden’s partner, Jim Crometty, has been brutally murdered on the job and Bowden is determined to bring the killer to justice. Thursday’s new division commander, Braxton Hicks, is convinced that Thursday has ulterior motives for taking her new assignment – namely tracking and finding Acheron Hades. Mr. Hades is the alleged thief who lifted the manuscript from the museum where Thursday was responsible for the security setup. Mixed up in all of this is Jack Schitt, head of internal security, for the Goliath Corporation. One of Goilath’s many branches is advanced military weaponry. Mr. Schitt would like nothing more than track down Acheron Hades and he sees no reason not to use Thursday to accomplish his mission. Why Schitt would like to track down Mr. Hades hasn’t been made clear yet but I’m betting it has something to do with his extraordinary abilities. Thursday, of course, wants absolutely nothing to do with Mr. Schitt. To thicken the plot just a touch more it seems that Hicks and Schitt are in bed together, so to speak.

Yet even more characters come into play such as Thursday’s uncle, Mycroft. Mycroft is an inventor and one of his more interesting ones is the Prose Portal. Using the Prose Portal one can be transported into a book’s storyline. Handy for someone like Acheron when there’s something of value to him in the manuscript he’s accused of stealing.

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OK folks here it is honestly: I’m three reading days and 17 chapters into this book and if I didn’t have the commitment of By the Chapter I would have set this book aside by now. Actually I’m finding that my reading background, or lack of in some areas, is hindrance to my enjoyment of this story. That said even the mystery part it isn’t capturing my interest. I’m not the slightest bit captivated by any of the characters. Also parts of it I’m finding too ‘British’ for my tastes.

But don’t turn away yet. I thought Jeanne wrote an absolutely wonderful post on Tuesday and captured the true essence of this book. Please stop by her blog to read the Tuesday post and stop by again on Thursday when I’m sure her second post will be just as fabulous. She does a much better job than I’m doing this week of getting the feeling of the book across to readers. It almost makes me wonder if we’re reading the same book. I know we are but we’re coming at from such opposite directions and viewpoints that you’d swear that mine must differ from hers.

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If you’ve read, or are currently reading, The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel please share your thoughts with us.

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This week’s reading scheduling: Monday: The Printed Page Tuesday: Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays Wednesday: The Printed Page Thursday: Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays Friday: The Printed Page/Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays

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Last year I had the pleasure (my thoughts) of reading Everyone Is Beautiful by Katherine Center. I’d like to thank Ms. Center for taking time from her busy writing schedule to stop by The Printed Page.

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One of my taglines for “Everyone Is Beautiful” is: “Love. Marriage. Chocolate cake.” Another is: “What happens after happily ever after.”

From the beginning, I wanted “Everyone Is Beautiful” to be a love story about married people. Which turned out to be more of a challenge than I’d expected.

Any good love story needs a good obstacle. Right? An obstacle heightens the tension, frustrates the characters, and drives the story forward. The intended couple wants to be together, but they can’t. It’s horrible! It’s delicious!

It’s why Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” was so brilliant. What better obstacle could two young lovers face than one of them being un-dead and wanting to drink up all the blood of the other? Obstacle-wise, it just doesn’t get any better than that.

When I started writing “Everyone Is Beautiful,” I thought the children of the central couple would make a wonderful obstacle. The weary mom and dad want to be together, but—because of the craziness of parenting young kids—they can’t. Horrible! Delicious! Perfect!

Except young vampires have it easier than parents. They don’t need to sleep, for example.

I am always interested in the real heartbreaks and hilarity of family life. I always want to write about those things in a completely authentic way. I’m not even sure that the kid-antics in my books are heightened for comic effect. They don’t need to be: Real life with kids is already heightened. It’s the Three Stooges and Jerry Lewis and Lucille Ball all rolled into one never-endng reel of gags, pies-in-the-face, and yuks. And tears, too, of course. And fevers.

The trouble with writing honestly about kid-life, it turns out, is that kids are too good of an obstacle for a love story. Exhaustion isn’t sexy. Potty training isn’t sexy. Three kids with the stomach flu? Not sexy.

And so I had a problem to solve. First, I had to get these people away from their children—at least for a little bit—so that they could reconnect. And second, I had to broaden the definition of love.

Because love, when you’ve been married a while, can be hard to describe. It’s not the same thing as that early, breathless infatuation that hogs our attention.

But maybe it’s better.

It’s easy not to notice how good things are. We are always forgetting to count our blessings. But every now and then a moment knocks you sideways. Like when you catch a glimpse of the person you’ve been with all these years across the room at a party, say, or standing at the sink washing dishes, and you feel that crazy flutter of infatuation again, just like it was back in the beginning—except now a million times better. Better for the lessons life has taught you. Better for the miracle that anybody ever stays with anyone else. Better for all the things you know now that you couldn’t possibly have known then. And better for the blessings that have been forgotten.

This week’s By the Chapter featured book is The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde

Follow today’s discussion over at Jeanne’s blog, Necromancy Never Pays

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This week’s reading scheduling: Monday: The Printed Page Tuesday: Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays Wednesday: The Printed Page Thursday: Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays Friday: The Printed Page/Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays

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If you’ve read, or are currently reading, The Eyre Affair please stop by and share your thoughts with us.

***

Welcome to By the Chapter. This week’s featured book is The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde. Sharing hosting duties with me this week is Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays.

***

If you’re not familiar with The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel here’s a little background on the book from Fantastic Fiction:

In Jasper Fforde’s Great Britain, circa 1985, time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection. But when someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature and plucks Jane Eyre from the pages of Brontë’s novel, Thursday is faced with the challenge of her career. Fforde’s ingenious fantasy-enhanced by a Web site that re-creates the world of the novel–unites intrigue with English literature in a delightfully witty mix.

***

I’ve read the first 5 chapters of this 36 chapter book. So far… We’ve been introduced to our main character, Thursday Next, a Special Operative in the Literary detection. Her current case is the theft of a manuscript from the Charles Dickens museum. The manuscript is protected better than all the gold stored at Fort Knox (a US military base). What makes Ms. Next especially uneasy about this theft is that she advised the museum on what security measures to put in place. Another troubling aspect is the ‘how’ of this disappearance as none of the usual telltale clues have been left behind. No fingerprints, no video images, no point of entry or exit, no witnesses, no anything. It appears that the manuscript has simply vanished into thin air.

While working her current case which has her chasing non-existent clues Thursday is approached by a department head from another unit. Unbeknownest to Thursday an alleged suspect has been identified and Tamworth wants her help capturing this man. Why you ask? Because Ms. Next has a prior close relationship with the suspect and can identify him when others can’t. You see our suspect has some very unique abilities such as you can’t mention his name as he senses it having been spoken. Once spoken he uses it to track the presence of his pursuers making sneaking up on him rather hard to do. You also can’t believe a thing he says or does such are his abilities to fool those around him. Thursday accepts her new assignment and becomes involved in a stakeout of said suspect that goes disastrously wrong with dire consequences. Once she recovers from her injuries she decides not to return her previous assignment but to be take a new one. This assignment will have her returning home. And how exactly did she decide that this was the assignment she should take? She appears, as herself to herself, in a vision while recuperating in the hospital.

While packing to leave the hospital more mysterious things start happening. A package is delivered containing a man’s overcoat and milliner’s bill from another century. Who should these items belong to but one Edward Fairfax Rochester, Esq. from Jane Eyre. Adding to the mystery – Thursday and Mr. Rochester have meet before and I think she means literally.

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I can’t decide what to make of this book so far. It’s a little ‘out there’, being as it’s set in an alternate type universe, compared to my usual reading but still has some basis in reality. I think one of the handicaps for me will be I’m not overly familiar with the literary characters or stories referenced in this book. I haven’t read any classic literature as it doesn’t hold any appeal for me. I’m betting I’ll miss literary references important to this story that others would pick up on simply because of their own familiarity with those works. Also I don’t usually read for detail and this storyline appears to need that. I don’t skim when I read but I also don’t pay a lot of the attention to the finer points either.

It’s doing a fair job of holding my interest so far as I’ve read the first 5 chapters without tossing it aside. We’ll have to see how things progress as the week goes on. I think it’ll be an interesting whodunit kind of the story.

I’m expecting that Jeanne will have a very different perspective as this is a re-read for her and she knows what’s coming. Be sure and stop by her blog, Necromancy Never Pays, on Tuesday for the continuation of By the Chapter. 

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If you’ve read, or are currently reading, The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel please share your thoughts with us.

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This week’s reading scheduling: Monday: The Printed Page Tuesday: Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays Wednesday: The Printed Page Thursday: Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays Friday: The Printed Page/Jeanne from Necromancy Never Pays ***