Book Review: Oath of Office by Michael Palmer

Title: Oath of Office by Michael Palmer
Release date: Feb. 14, 2012; St. Martin's Press
Genre: medical thriller
Objective rating: 4/5

Dr. John Meacham suddenly goes berserk and shoots several of the patients in his office. Other people in King's Ridge begin to show signs of stress, lack of judgement, and extreme destructive behavior, both to others and to themselves.

In the meantime, the director of the Department of Agriculture is forced to resign due to evidence of sexual improprieties. The first lady of the U.S., Darlene, becomes involved when she receives information from an anonymous Doctor M that the agricultural director was framed. This ties in later with the bizarre behavior of the people of King's Ridge and a local corporation.

This is an environmental thriller, where the main character, Dr. Lou Welcome,is almost killed several times trying to find the link between King's Ridge and the extreme lack of judgement some of its residents are showing. Lou begins to work with the First Lady, who follows up on the tips from the mysterious Doctor M and, with her chief of staff, tries to run this evident conspiracy to the ground.

Unfortunately I knew before I started reading that the thriller involves genetic manipulation of food. The quote at the beginning of the book from Seeds of Deception about scientists inserting genes from an animal into a plant gives it away and just about tells us what the medical thriller is about. I would have preferred to have been surprised and find out later.

What's pleasantly new in the book is having a First Lady become a clandestine investigator or sleuth of sorts. What is also new is the president himself not following his Oath of Office in this dire situation. Combining DNA of animals and plants, different species, sounds potentially very scary. I think the book makes that point.

I received a complimentary ARC of this book.

© Harvee Lau of Book Dilettante. Please do not reprint without permission

Author interview: Erin Kelly, The Dark Rose

Erin Kelly

Author of

THE DARK ROSE

Pamela Dorman / Viking
Publication: February 6, 2012

Q: Is any part of THE DARK ROSE autobiographical, or is it wholly imagined?  

A.  Of course parts of me leak into my characters. I can only tell you about the aspects I am conscious of. I’m sure there are more. As one British reviewer recently told me, ‘Your readers know you better than you know yourself.’

The Dark Rose is told from the alternating points of view of 19-year-old Paul and Louisa, the older woman who eventually becomes his lover. Both of them embody different aspects of me at various times in my life. 

Like Louisa, in my late teens I was a sucker for anything that was prefaced by the word ‘alternative’, whether music, therapy or religion, and it was great fun revisiting those years. I also had a terrible weakness for pretty boys who wanted to be rock stars, although in my case that did not prove fatal.

And like Paul, I grew up in Essex, the infamous county to the east of London that follows the Thames out to the North Sea. My home was bookish and sensitive, but the wider culture there is neither of those things, and when I was writing him I drew on memories of isolation that I sometimes felt growing up.

Q.  Most of us have flirted with dangerous situations or people during adolescent and young adult years, but few pay the price that your protagonists, Paul and Louisa do? What inspired you to write about adolescence?

A.  Late adolescence is when life really begins; those years are a perfect storm of freedom and curiosity, responsibility and impulsiveness. Life has not yet blunted the edges of our passion so little wonder we cut ourselves from time to time.

On a more practical level, during this period, life is relatively transient and that suited my plot. Without mortgages, careers or families to tie them down, my characters could easily uproot themselves, run away, begin new lives, and hide. 

Q.  Why did you choose the backdrop of a sixteenth-century English garden as the backdrop for this novel? Can you explain the title in the context of having chosen this as your setting?

A.  I’ve always found inspiration in ancient places, and a few years ago I was walking in the gardens at Cawdor Castle in Scotland, when I found half-hidden in the grounds, a battered old VW Camper Van. The juxtaposition between this modern vehicle and the centuries-old garden got me thinking. What sort of person would stay in a place like that? Are they part of the life of the castle or separate from it? What’s their story? From there the character of Louisa slowly grew. She is so scarred by her past that she has rejected all the comforts and threats of contemporary life, content to immerse herself in history rather than deal with the present. This suited her character but also worked on a practical, plot-serving level. It’s not easy these days to live off-grid or under the radar, to remain untraceable, but when we meet Louisa at the beginning of the story, that is just what she has done. 
 
Kelstice Lodge, the ruined Elizabethan hall whose garden Louisa is restoring, is my own invention, but is loosely based on a similar project at Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire. It’s a huge, eerie place. Its crumbling red stone walls have witnessed blood-curdling scenes more powerful and violent than anything I could invent. While I was thinking about Louisa’s character, I happened to see a documentary on the English Heritage project to restore the gardens to the way they looked in 1575, when Elizabeth I came to stay.  
                                                                                                                    

The Kelstice Lodge project is on a much smaller scale, and infinitely less professional, but the seeds of inspiration were sown.  (Incidentally, I got the name Kelstice from the pictures tacked to the wall in my study; a postcard showing a page from The Book of Kells was next to a flyer for a summer solstice party.)

As for the title, it’s open to a number of interpretations. There is a scene in the book where Louisa describes to Paul the curse of gardeners everywhere of Rose Sickness, a phenomenon whereby a newly-planted rose will fail to flourish in soil where another rose has been. (I believe it’s something to do with nitrates in the soil, but that’s as far as my understanding goes.) In Paul, Louisa thinks she has found the replacement for someone she loved and lost in violent circumstances when she was a girl. It is only when she accepts Paul on his own terms, rather as a simulacrum of someone else, that their relationship begins to deepen and flourish.

Q.  What kind of research did you do for this book?

A. The Essex and London scenes I drew from memory, but to create Kelstice Lodge I visited Kenilworth Castle and other stately gardens. I also read an inspirational book called The Lost Gardens of Heligan by Tim Smit, which described a garden restoration project in Cornwall. I urge everyone to read it: beautifully written, it’s full of fascinating detail and has a wonderful true-life cast of quintessentially British eccentrics. Its romantic, shambolic spirit encapsulates life at Kelstice.

Funnily enough, the more technical knowledge about garden restoration I amassed, the less made it through into the text. What I didn’t do was actually pay any attention to my own little garden in London; I wrote much of The Dark Rose in the summer months, while the grass and weeds grew waist-high.


Q.  In THE DARK ROSE you explore the extremes of obsessive love and loyalty, devotion and desperation, what about these themes inspired you to write about them?

A.  What I have noticed on re-reading the novel is that obsessive love is just the springboard for the real issue; that is, how far we can all be pushed, the extraordinary potential within ordinary people – for good, as well as evil. As in my first novel, The Poison Tree, I’m interested in blurring the boundaries between good and bad, guilty and innocent, and obsessive, desperate love is one way to make people cross borders that previously seemed impassable. Throughout the novel, I also explore the idea of whether guilt can ever be shared, or if one party is always to blame, if it is always a case of strength versus weakness.

Q.  Why did you decide to make the older character a woman? Do you think the story would be received differently had the ages of Paul and Louis been reversed? Was it easier to write the character of Louisa for you?


A.  I did not consciously decide to write a love story between an older woman and a younger man; that’s just what character, and then plot, dictated. Of course, the dynamic would be different if the genders or ages were reversed but then it would not have been such an interesting story to write. Louisa is actually a classic case of arrested development, emotionally stunted and frozen at the age of 19, when her lover died. And Paul is in some ways sensitive and mature for his age, so in that sense it becomes a more equal relationship than the age gap would suggest. Actually, I think that their different upbringings – she comes from money and privilege, his background is far humbler – would be more of a stumbling block than the years between them.

As for writing Paul, there are some details of male adolescence I can only draw from imagination, but I can remember with cringing clarity how it feels to be a sensitive teenager overawed by the opposite sex. 

Thanks to Sonya Cheuse of Viking for the interview and review copy of The Dark Rose. See my review of the Dark Rose

Book Review: The Dark Rose by Erin Kelly

Adam demanded reciprocal worship.

"I recognized you as soon as I saw you," he said, his hands pinning hers to the bed. "We're two of a kind, you and me. Do you know how rare that is? Sometimes it frightens me."

"Me too," she whispered into his mouth. (ch. 12)


The Dark Rose:A Novel by Erin Kelly
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books, Viking (February 2, 2012)
Genre: thriller, dark romance

My comments: Louise is a 39-year-old woman with a past, which she escapes by disappearing to work on renovating Tudor ruins and a beautiful garden, far from London. She has a dark secret, one involving her former lover Adam. At the ruins, she meets a young worker, Paul, many years younger than herself, who reminds her strongly of Adam. Paul himself is hiding out, afraid of repercussions after turning in his former cohort who has been charged with murder in London.

Paul and Louisa come together, find what they have in common, and are drawn together in another dark romance. They hide their secrets, plot darkly to save themselves, as their pasts creep up and threaten to destroy them.

An excellently written novel with two interesting plots that come together to form a fascinating third, The Dark Rose is haunting. I recommend it for those who would like a thriller, romance, and a look at the dark side of desire.

About the Author: Erin Kelly is the author of the acclaimed thriller The Poison Tree. Previously, she worked as a freelance journalist for ten years. She lives in north London with her family.

GIVEAWAY: I have a second copy of the novel to giveaway to a reader in the U.S., thanks to the publisher. To enter by Jan. 20, leave me a comment with an email address. No post office boxes, please. 

UPDATE: The giveaway was won on Jan. 20 by Sue. Congrats!
Thanks to Sonya Cheuse of Viking for a complimentary review copy and a giveaway copy of this book.
© Harvee Lau of Book Dilettante. Please do not reprint without permission

Unplanned Library Finds: Jan. 11

I wasn't planning to go the library but to find a laundromat to finish washing wet rugs that had been sitting in my washer when it suddenly went kaput! Maybe it was my fault, I overloaded the machine with rugs and then didn't get to it fast enough when it went bonkers in the spin cycle. So what if the almost 19-year-old washer was going to go out soon anyway; I may have shortened its lifespan by six months or so, I figure.

In any case, I missed the turnoff into the plaza with the laundromat (I haven't been there in two years), and then decided it would be easier to just continue cruising in the traffic toward the library instead of trying to turn around. I went into the library and came out with a DVD and six books I didn't need. Then, I returned to the laundromat, which was time consuming and an all round pain.
Good thing I had a book.....

Here are my library finds:

Tuya's Marriage, a DVD, is described thusly:
"Tuya, hardworking and hardheaded, is a Mongolian desert herder who refuses to be settled in a town in accordance with the new industrialization policy. She is kept busy with two kids, a disabled husband and one hundred sheep to care for, but one day she hurts her back. The only way for the family to survive is for her to divorce her husband on paper and look for a new spouse who can take care of the whole family. A series of suitors lines up, but it s not easy to find a man who fits the bill. This warm, endearing tale, featuring stunning cinematography, won the top prize at the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival."  (How did I find this DVD? By looking in the "just returned" stack.)

I also borrowed two books on the short list for the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize:
YAN LIANKE, China - Dream of Ding Village (Grove Atlantic)
 JAMIL AHMAD, Pakistan - The Wandering Falcon (Penguin India/Hamish Hamilton
and hope to get to the others that I haven't read as yet, sometime this year.

Then I went to the mystery section and grabbed some cozies, the opiate of (some of) the masses, like myself:

Death of a Greedy Woman by M. C.Beaton, a new Hamish Macbeth mystery set in Scottush highlands. ( I hoped she was greedy for money, or food, or diamonds, but not for reading!)
A Grave in the Cotswolds by Rebecca Tope (Any mystery with the word "Cotswolds" in it always gets my attention. )
Death in a Difficult Position: A Mantra for Murder Mystery by Diana Killian (I'm due for yoga class tomorrow but will try not to over do it.)

and one more book that is lost somewhere in the house. I will hopefully find it before it's due.

Mantra for Murder Mystery

And what books, fellow bloggers, have you found lately at the library or the bookstore?

© Harvee Lau of Book Dilettante. Please do not reprint without permission

Shortlist for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2011

The Man Asian Literary Prize  for 2011 has increased its short list from five to seven books.

Dream of Ding Village

2011 Shortlist

JAMIL AHMAD, Pakistan - The Wandering Falcon (Penguin India/Hamish Hamilton)

JAHNAVI BARUA, India - Rebirth (Penguin India/Penguin Books)

RAHUL BHATTACHARYA, India - The Sly Company of People Who Care (Pan Macmillan/Pan Macmillan India/Picador)

AMITAV GHOSH, India - River of Smoke (John Murray/Penguin India/Hamish Hamilton)

KYUNG-SOOK SHIN, South Korea -  Please Look After Mom (Alfred A. Knopf)

YAN LIANKE, China - Dream of Ding Village (Grove Atlantic)

BANANA YOSHIMOTO, Japan - The Lake (Melville House)

Please Look After Mom

I've reviewed Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin, and was intensely moved by this very sad but revealing story from South Korea.

I've also listened to most of the audio of River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh, and was fascinated by the historical fiction account of the Opium War and British and Indian involvement.

All of the other books are on my wish list for my several reading challenges.

Book Review: Finding My Balance, a Memoir by Mariel Hemingway

Teaser Tuesdays asks you to choose sentences at random from your current read. Identify the author and title for readers.

"It seems to me that before I discovered meditation I traveled from one want to the next, seeking comfort and joy in winning acting roles and the love of my peers, or even things as trivial as a silk carpet or the perfect physique.... " (ch . 12)

Title: Finding My Balance: A Memoir by Mariel Hemingway
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (January 30, 2003)
Source: library

Comments: Mariel Hemingway, granddaughter of the writer Ernest Hemingway, writes the memoir of life as a member of the famous family and describes how she navigates through the minefield of her life, eventually "Finding My Balance." She uses yoga as a help to reach that goal. Her memoir alone is interesting, but adding yoga to the mix makes the book both useful and informative. At the end of the memoir are detailed instructions for basic yoga moves, with pictures and instructions.

Publisher's description: "Actress Mariel Hemingway uses the lessons and practices of yoga as a starting point for her own personal reflections and a larger-than-life family story. The result is a searingly honest memoir that is firmly practical, as well as a moving narrative of the author's struggle to deal with a complex and often stressful life.

Mariel was the third daughter born to Jack Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway's son, and Byra Whittlesey. Her older sister, Muffet, suffered for years from instability, while middle sister Margaux, a celebrated actress and model, eventually died of the effects of her driven lifestyle. Their mother, Byra, was darkly moody and emotionally quixotic, and made no secret of her disdain for her husband, while Jack, himself insecure in no small part because of his celebrated father, a man he never really felt he knew, was an indifferent parent at best.

Even before she was a teenager, Mariel was forced to assume the role of stable center of her family. In just about every way, she never really had a childhood of her own, a situation that was exacerbated by her sudden thrust into celebrity when she was first cast in sister Margaux's film "Lipstick," then in Woody Allen's "Manhattan." Suddenly, Mariel was a movie star."

© Harvee Lau of Book Dilettante. Please do not reprint without permission

Book Review: Folly Beach by Dorothea Benton Frank

"... here's the guy who allegedly put Charleston on the map again with Porgy and Bess."

What do you mean allegedly?"

"DuBose published the book Porgy in 1925, not the play."

"Then who did, The Gershwins?"

"Nope, the play Porgy appeared on Broadway in 1927. Gershwin's play didn't run until 1934...." (ch. 14)

Title: Folly Beach: A Low Country Tale by Dorothea Benton Frank
Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (December 27, 2011)
Genre: Southern fiction
Objective rating: 3/5

My comments: Cate Cooper lost her husband to suicide, and finding that she had also lost her home due to her husband's enormous debts, she returns to Folly Beach, South Carolina, the place where she grew up. There she rekindles her love for her old home state, finds new love with John Risley, and finds a hobby delving into local history through the South Carolina Historical Society. Cate's personal story is the background for the more interesting part of the novel.

She researches the history of local writers Dorothy and DuBose Heyward, who wrote the original book, Porgy and then the play in the 1920s. The Heywards collaborated in the 1930s with George Gerswhin, the composer, and produced the famous musical play/opera, Porgy and Bess. Cate also discovers that the talented and more educated Dorothy allowed her husband DuBose to take most of the credit for the book and play, staying in the background while he shone in the limelight as a writer. But through it all, the novel shows the Heywards as a happily married couple and part of the Charleston aristocracy.

Though the author's approach to the story was too nostalgic for someone like me, who has visited Charleston and South Carolina only once, Gerswhin fans and those who like southern fiction will enjoy the setting and the history of some famous people of the state.

Product description: "Folly Beach is considered one of South Carolina's most historic and romantic spots, the land of Cate Cooper's childhood. Cate never thought she'd wind up in this tiny cottage on this lovely strip of coast. But circumstances have changed, thanks to her newly dead husband who has left Cate homeless, broke, and unmoored....

For Cate, Folly holds unexpected fulfillment when she is forced to look again at her life and the zany characters that are her family. She finds that you can go home again. "



List of all TLC reviews: Folly Beach tour stops
A review copy of this book was provided through TLC Book Tours.

© Harvee Lau of Book Dilettante. Please do not reprint without permission