Backlist Briefs: Mini Reviews for CITY OF BONES & THE CHILD
/22 Comments/by SuzannePublished by Margaret K. McElderry Books on March 27, 2007
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction
Pages: 485
Source: Purchased
Amazon
Goodreads
GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:
When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder― much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It's hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing―not even a smear of blood―to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?
This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It's also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace's world with a vengeance when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know...
Review:
I think I’m probably the last person on the planet to start reading the Mortal Instruments series, but finally decided on jump on the bandwagon as part of this year’s Beat the Backlist challenge. I was looking for a fun and entertaining vacation read and City of Bones, the first book in this series, really fit the bill. It’s a bit of a brick at 458 pages, but Cassandra Clare’s writing style is so fast-paced that I breezed right through the book in just a few sittings.
The worldbuilding was probably the biggest attraction for me in City of Bones. It was a fascinating journey to follow the protagonist, Clarissa Fray (Clary), as she learns about the world of Shadowhunters and Downworlders, a fantasy world that has been hidden in plain sight in NYC around her all her life. The author does a fantastic job of weaving into her tale pretty much any kind of supernatural character you can imagine. There are vampires, werewolves, witches, zombies, demons, and of course the Shadowhunters, who are warriors tasked with ridding the world of demons.
Aside from the fantastic worldbuilding, the characters were also a huge draw. I was a little slow to warm up to Clary at first (I’m not even sure why honestly), but I immediately became sympathetic to her when her mother goes missing and Clary is attacked by a demon in her own home. I especially warmed up to Clary as she began to interact with the Shadowhunters, especially Jace, who is handsome but kind of an arrogant jerk at times. (I do have to give Jace bonus points though since he is willing to help Clary find her mom.) The author writes some hilarious banter between Jace and Clary, as well as between Jace, Alec, and Isabelle, some of Jace’s fellow Shadowhunters. They were a fun group and I especially liked how they all had each other’s backs even in the most dangerous of situations. Clary’s friend Simon added some entertaining nerdiness to the dynamic as well.
Even though most people have probably already long since read City of Bones, I still don’t want to give away any spoiler, so I’m just going to say that the mystery of what has happened to Clary’s mother and why Clary suddenly finds herself attacked by demons really takes the reader on a journey filled with wild and crazy plot twists. There was never a dull moment and I was thoroughly entertained from start to finish. I’ve read complaints that the story borrows from the likes of Harry Potter, Star Wars, and more, and while I did see some resemblance, it didn’t bother me and I still enjoyed the story overall. The star I took off is primarily because I smelled an unnecessary love triangle brewing. 4 STARS.
The Child by Fiona Barton
Also by this author: The Suspect
Series: Kate Waters #2
Published by Berkley Books on December 14, 2017
Genres: Mystery, Fiction
Pages: 448
Also in this series: The Suspect
Source: Purchased
Amazon
Goodreads
GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:
‘An engrossing, irresistible story about the coming to light of a long-buried secret.
When a paragraph in an evening newspaper reveals a decades-old tragedy, most readers barely give it a glance. But for three strangers it’s impossible to ignore.
For one woman, it’s a reminder of the worst thing that ever happened to her.
For another, it reveals the dangerous possibility that her darkest secret is about to be discovered.
And for the third, a journalist, it’s the first clue in a hunt to uncover the truth.
The Child’s story will be told.
Review:
Fiona Barton’s The Child is a compelling story about what happens when a long-buried secret unexpectedly rears its head and threatens to shatter lives. It follows the story of what happens when construction workers who are demolishing a house uncover the skeleton of an infant. For most, since forensics indicate the skeleton has been there for decades, the tragedy is barely a blip on their radar, but for three women, the discovery practically turns their lives upside down.
Emma is haunted by the discovery of the skeletal remains because she fears her darkest secret is about to be revealed for all the world (and especially for her mother Jude) to see. Not unlike Emma, Angela sees the infant’s death as a reminder of the worst thing that has ever happened to her but is also somewhat hopeful that the discovery could bring her the closure she has never gotten over the years. And then finally, there’s Kate, a journalist who makes it her mission in life to find out who this infant is and how she ended up buried in someone’s backyard decades ago. I thought the author did a wonderful job of fleshing out each of these characters as well as their motivations for paying such close attention to what happens every step along the way as the skeletal remains are investigated in hopes of identifying the infant.
The main issue I had with The Child was the fact that even though I was interested in why each character reacted the way they did to the discovery of the remains, I can’t say that I really connected with any of them. I felt like a bystander watching everything play out and waiting to see whose life would be the most turned upside down as the events unfolded. Aside from not really connecting with the characters, I also felt like the plot, although very interesting, moved very slowly at times. It was very easy to set the book down and just come back to it whenever.
Overall, The Child is still a very solid mystery that, even with the pacing issues, I still wanted to know all the answers to. And if you can hang around until the end, Holy Plot Twist, Batman! I totally did not see the ending coming! 3.5 STARS
About Cassandra Clare
Cassandra Clare was born to American parents in Teheran, Iran and spent much of her childhood travelling the world with her family, including one trek through the Himalayas as a toddler where she spent a month living in her father’s backpack. She lived in France, England and Switzerland before she was ten years old.
Since her family moved around so much she found familiarity in books and went everywhere with a book under her arm. She spent her high school years in Los Angeles where she used to write stories to amuse her classmates, including an epic novel called “The Beautiful Cassandra” based on a Jane Austen short story of the same name (and which later inspired her current pen name).
After college, Cassie lived in Los Angeles and New York where she worked at various entertainment magazines and even some rather suspect tabloids where she reported on Brad and Angelina’s world travels and Britney Spears’ wardrobe malfunctions. She started working on her YA novel, City of Bones, in 2004, inspired by the urban landscape of Manhattan, her favourite city. She turned to writing fantasy fiction full time in 2006 and hopes never to have to write about Paris Hilton again.
Cassie’s first professional writing sale was a short story called “The Girl’s Guide to Defeating the Dark Lord” in a Baen anthology of humor fantasy. Cassie hates working at home alone because she always gets distracted by reality TV shows and the antics of her two cats, so she usually sets out to write in local coffee shops and restaurants. She likes to work in the company of her friends, who see that she sticks to her deadlines.
City of Bones was her first novel.
About Fiona Barton
In Barton’s own words…
“My career has taken some surprising twists and turns over the years. I have been a journalist – senior writer at the Daily Mail, news editor at the Daily Telegraph, and chief reporter at The Mail on Sunday, where I won Reporter of the Year at the National Press Awards, gave up my job to volunteer in Sri Lanka and since 2008, have trained and worked with exiled and threatened journalists all over the world.
But through it all, a story was cooking in my head.
The worm of my first book infected me long ago when, as a national newspaper journalist covering notorious crimes and trials, I found myself wondering what the wives of those accused really knew – or allowed themselves to know.
It took the liberation of my career change to turn that fascination into a tale of a missing child, narrated by the wife of the man suspected of the crime, the detective leading the hunt, the journalist covering the case and the mother of the victim.
Much to my astonishment and delight, The Widow was published in 36 countries and made the Sunday Times and New York Times Best Seller lists.
It gave me the confidence to write a second book ,The Child, in which I return to another story that had intrigued me as a journalist. It begins with the discovery of a newborn’s skeleton on a building site. It only makes a paragraph in an evening newspaper but for three women it’s impossible to ignore.
The Child will be published in June 2017 and I am embarking on my next novel. My husband and I are still living the good life in south-west France, where I am writing in bed, early in the morning when the only distraction is our cockerel, Titch, crowing.”
Weekly Recap #75: Week of 10/21 -10/27
/28 Comments/by Suzanne
It’s time for another weekly recap post of all things happening on and off the blog. This week I’ll be linking to the Sunday Post, which is hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.
So, I’m back home from my trip to New York City and what a great trip it was! I had decided not to try to keep up with the blog at all while vacationing and I think it was the right choice because I truly had no downtime whatsoever to devote to it. I won’t bore you to death with all of the details of the trip, but I’ll share a few highlights. We got there Sunday evening and started our adventure with dinner followed by a show at the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village. If you love stand-up, I highly recommend this place. I’ve been there twice now and thought it was absolutely hilarious both times. Plus, you can stroll around the Village before or after the show, which is always cool.
Those who know me well know that I have an obsession with food tours. I like to pick up a little knowledge about where I’ve traveling to, but I’m really all about tasting all of the delicious food choices that are unique to the area. I’ve done several tours in NY through Foods of New York and I highly recommend them, especially their Original Greenwich Village tour, which is incredible. This time, however, we went with a different company, Urban Adventures, but still had an equally fantastic experience. The tour we picked was the Lower East Side Food and Culture Tour and it took us through Little Italy, Nolita, SoHo, Chinatown, and more. The food was delicious, and I had never really done much exploring in that part of the city so it was great to finally get to do that. I think the highlight of the tour for everyone in my group was going to Yonah Schimmel’s Knish Bakery and trying our first ever knish. OMG, so good!
We of course took in a couple of Broadway shows while we were there as well. For those who have been following my misadventures in trying to score Hamilton and Springsteen tickets, you know this was a huge deal for me. Now don’t get me wrong, you can still get tickets to either show, if you’re willing to pay through the nose to buy them from a third-party reseller. I was not willing to do that. It was either straight from the venue at the normal ticket price or I wasn’t going. So after more than a year of impatiently waiting for my turn, using the Ticketmaster Verified Fan program, I was finally able to score tickets to both shows for this past week. I have cursed that whole process for months now, but I have to tell you, after seeing both shows this week, it was totally worth the whole pain-in-the-ass process. Both shows were everything I hoped they would be and more. Hamilton is truly brilliant. It’s now my favorite Broadway musical and I think Lin-Manuel Miranda is nothing short of a musical genius. 46 songs, mostly rap and hip hop, minimal dialogue outside of the songs, and everything about the show just blew me away. I’ve had the soundtrack on repeat ever since we got on the train to head back home. And Springsteen is a master storyteller. I’m not sure any other pop/rock artist could pull off the kind of show he puts on on Broadway. It’s quintessential Springsteen, both in song choice and in showmanship. Man, I just love that guy…
I could keep babbling about my trip, but I won’t. Apologies in advance if this post is filled with typos or just rambles incoherently. I’m still so tired because I don’t sleep well when I travel and I have a case of the post-vacation blues that I really need to get over, lol.
Oh, before I forget, I did go back and visit The Strand Bookstore and it was just as awesome as I remembered. I didn’t buy any books, but I did pick up a ton of cool bookish merchandise – totes, pins, etc. If you ever make it to NYC, I definitely recommend going there and then heading across the street to Max Brenner’s Chocolate Bar for a delicious gourmet Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate. Yum!
Oh well, that’s it for me. I’ll be back to blog hopping and regular posting this week so I’ll see you around the blogosphere. Have a great week!
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Review: THE GIRL FROM BERLIN
/20 Comments/by SuzanneSeries: Liam Taggart & Catherine Lockhart #5
Published by St. Martin's Press on October 9, 2018
Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery
Pages: 352
Source: Netgalley
Amazon
Goodreads
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
REVIEW:
Ronald H. Balson’s The Girl from Berlin is the fifth installment in his Liam Taggart & Catherine Lockhart series. I actually didn’t even realize this book was part of a series when I requested it from Netgalley; I just saw that it was a dual timeline WWII historical fiction that focused on the rise of the Nazis and knew that I had to read it. Thankfully, even without four novels of background on main characters Catherine and Liam, I was still easily able to follow along and enjoy the compelling story of The Girl from Berlin.
Catherine Lockhart and Liam Taggart are a very likable duo. Catherine is a very successful attorney in the United States, and her partner Liam, is a private investigator. I enjoyed the way they worked together, like yin and yang, to get the job done, as well as their easy banter. It made me want to go back and read the prior four books to watch them work together more.
Aside from having a likeable team leading the way, I also found both timelines and their stories equally compelling. The modern day timeline features Catherine and Liam being approached by an old friend who has an elderly aunt in Tuscany who is in desperate need of legal assistance. A powerful corporation is claiming that they actually own the property that the aunt has lived on all her life, and they have served her with an eviction notice. The aunt has a deed to her property, but somehow the corporation also has a deed so the question is whose deed is valid? Catherine and Liam don’t know if they can help but are willing to give it their best shot. Prior to taking off for Tuscany, the aunt sends Catherine a bound handwritten manuscript. She will not discuss the manuscript but indicates that all the answers anyone needs regarding the ownership of the property are in this manuscript, which leads us the second timeline. I found the aunt to be a very sympathetic character as well. I mean, how can you not love a scrappy old lady trying to keep a greedy corporation from kicking her off her land?
The second timeline takes place within the pages of this manuscript as Catherine reads it on her flight. It is a journal of sorts kept by a woman named Ada Baumgarten, a Jewish girl who was born in Berlin at the end of WWI. The manuscript details Ada’s life as a violin prodigy and her growing friendship with a boy named Kurt. It goes on to detail how life was in Germany in the space between WWI and WWII, especially the way Hitler and the Nazis began to slowly consolidate their power in the lead up to WWII. The manuscript reminded me a lot of Anne Frank’s diary as she chronicled how life became more and more restrictive for Jews and how persecution of them just grew and grew the more powerful Hitler got. Ada’s story is a powerful one and an emotional one as we see how she, her family, friends, and neighbors are all impacted by the Nazis and the utter hatred that they ushered in with them as they rose to power.
In addition to finding each of the individual timelines so compelling, I was also captivated waiting to see how the author was going to weave them together into a seamless tale. How does Ada and her journey through WWII fit in to the modern-day story of this elderly Italian aunt who is in danger of losing her home? I’m not going to say anymore about this, but just know that he does and that he does so brilliantly.
Overall I found this story a very satisfying read, but I did find the passages that focused on specific details of Ada’s musical performances less interesting than the rest of the novel and found myself skimming through them at times. I think if I was a musician, I probably would have appreciated those details a bit more, but as someone who is non-musically inclined, just knowing Ada was a gifted violinist and that it made some of the Nazis treat her differently was enough information for me.
Ronald H. Balson’s The Girl from Berlin is a powerful tale that is filled with secrets, lies, and corruption. However, it’s also a tale of hope, determination, and resilience. And even though Catherine and Liam are technically the main characters, the real stars are Ada and the Italian aunt and what connects them. For that reason, you can easily read The Girl from Berlin even if this is your first time reading a book in this series. If historical fiction and dual timelines are your thing, don’t hesitate to pick up a copy of the The Girl from Berlin.
GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:
In the newest novel from internationally-bestselling author, Liam and Catherine come to the aid of an old friend and are drawn into a property dispute in Tuscany that unearths long-buried secrets.
An old friend calls Catherine Lockhart and Liam Taggart to his famous Italian restaurant to enlist their help. His aunt is being evicted from her home in the Tuscan hills by a powerful corporation claiming they own the deeds, even though she can produce her own set of deeds to her land. Catherine and Liam’s only clue is a bound handwritten manuscript, entirely in German, and hidden in its pages is a story long-forgotten…
Ada Baumgarten was born in Berlin in 1918, at the end of the war. The daughter of an accomplished first-chair violinist in the prestigious Berlin Philharmonic, and herself a violin prodigy, Ada’s life was full of the rich culture of Berlin’s interwar society. She formed a deep attachment to her childhood friend Kurt, but they were torn apart by the growing unrest as her Jewish family came under suspicion. As the tides of history turned, it was her extraordinary talent that would carry her through an unraveling society turned to war, and make her a target even as it saved her, allowing her to move to Bologna―though Italy was not the haven her family had hoped, and further heartache awaited.
What became of Ada? How is she connected to the conflicting land deeds of a small Italian villa? As they dig through the layers of lies, corruption, and human evil, Catherine and Liam uncover an unfinished story of heart, redemption, and hope―the ending of which is yet to be written.
About Ronald H. Balson
When he’s not writing books, Ron is a practicing attorney with the firm of Stone, Pogrund & Korey in Chicago. He has been a civil litigation attorney for forty-three years. He was an adjunct professor of business law at the University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business for twenty-five years and was a frequent lecturer in the federal bar certification course and in trial advocacy seminars.
The demands of his legal practice have taken Ron into courts all across the United States and Canada, and for deposition testimony all across Europe and Asia. A few years ago, Ron became involved in a commercial dispute concerning telephone service in Poland. Numerous trips to Warsaw and southern Poland provided the inspiration for his first novel, Once We Were Brothers. Ron’s love of history and his travels to the Middle East provided the motivation for his second novel, Saving Sophie.
During the Once We Were Brothers book tour, Ron was introduced to several survivors of the World War II concentration camps. Of all the stories of courage and determination, one woman’s story was so moving that it formed the basis for Karolina’s Twins, Ron’s third book due out in 2016.
Ron was a finalist for the Harper Lee Award for Legal Fiction in 2014 and a finalist for the Premio Bancarella Italian Literature Award in 2014. He was an honoree at the Chicago Public Library Foundation’s Carl Sandburg Literary Award dinner.