Book Review: THE SUMMER BEFORE THE STORM by Gabriele Wills

Virtual Author Book Tours presents The Summer Before the Storm: The Muskoka Novels Book 1 by Gabriele Wills, published 2006 by Mindshadows and available in paperback and Kindle.

An orchestra played softly in the minstrel's gallery above so as not to interfere with the conversations of the hundreds of diners. Potted palms were interspersed among the crisply-linened tables. Guests were arrayed in their finest silks and diamonds. It was hard to believe that they were virtually in the primitive backwoods of Canada.

DESCRIPTION: "It’s the Age of Elegance in the summer playground of the affluent and powerful. Amid the pristine, island-dotted lakes and pine-scented forests of the Canadian wilderness, the young and carefree amuse themselves with glittering balls and friendly competitions.

In the summer of 1914 the destitute son of a disowned heir joins his wealthy family at their cottage on Wyndwood Island. Jack is introduced into the privileged life of the aristocratic Wyndhams and their social circle; he seeks opportunities and alliances to better himself, including in his schemes, his beautiful and audacious cousin, Victoria. But their charmed lives begin to unravel with the onset of the Great War, in which many are destined to become part of the “lost generation”.

The Summer Before the Storm, the first of the epic Muskoka Trilogy, evokes a gracious, bygone era that still resonates in this legendary land of lakes. This novel was chosen by the Muskoka Chautauqua for their esteemed Reading List in 2010." (publisher)

Comments: It was interesting to get a glimpse of life in 1914 and later during WWI of some of the wealthy families in Canada, their lives of leisure, their family intrigues, and whose lives were later drastically disturbed by the war. Book I ends somewhat abruptly with lives hanging in the air in the middle of WWI, so to speak, and the reader wants to continue on to Book II to find out the outcomes.

An historical novel describing family life in the first half, with much more dramatic action in the second.  A good addition, I think, to the novels of Canadian history.

Gabriele Wills has written five historical novels, weaving compelling stories around meticulously researched facts.
With degrees in the social sciences and education, Gabriele has had a varied career as an educator, literacy coordinator, and website designer, and has been an active community volunteer, particularly in heritage preservation.

Gabriele emigrated to Canada from Germany as a young child. She grew up in Lindsay, Ontario, and currently resides in Guelph with her husband. Visit her at Mindshadows.com
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/GabrieleWills
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GabrieleWills

Thanks to the tour and the author/publisher for a review copy of this book.

The Sunday Salon: Bathing Women by Tie Ning

Welcome to the Sunday Salon!

I just love Sunday mornings, browsing blogs by book bloggers (alliteration unintended) who often post on this day.

I found an interesting novel on Literary Hoarders' website - a book about contemporary life in China by Tie Ning.

The book description grabbed my interest:  A new generation of young professionals in contemporary China. The Bathing Women follows the lives of four women—Tiao, a children’s book editor; Fan, her sister, who thinks escaping to America might solve her problems; Fei,a hedonistic and self-destructive young woman; and Youyou, a chef—from childhood during the Cultural Revolution to adulthood in the new market economy. This moving novel charts the journey of these women as they grapple with love, sibling rivalry, and, ultimately, redemption. (publisher)

Browsing along this morning, I found an article that readers might like but which authors won't: Out of Touch: E-Reading Isn't Reading by Andrew Piper in Slate Magazine, listed by Man of La Book.
The blog listed another controversial post on e-books, Fair Warning for Those Who Read E-Books, by Confessions of a Mystery Novelist. If you have mixed feelings about ebooks versus paper books, as I do, you will want to read these posts!

I confess though, that I read all 1,000 pages of Murakami's IQ84 on a Kindle and might not have finished the book otherwise. That is one heavy book to carry around!

What do you think about the no longer new e-book controversy? And what new books have you gotten or read or found recently?

Book Review: THE FAR SIDE OF THE SKY by Daniel Kalla

Title: The Far Side of the Sky by Daniel Kalla
Published June 5, 2012; Forge Books
Genre: historical novel
Source: library book

 April 14, 1940, Shanghai...
"Can you believe we have already been in Shanghai for almost a year and a half, Franz?"
Esther asked from the armchair where she sat lengthening Hannah's school skirt.
"Feels more like a lifetime and a half,"Franz replied.
"Ja," Eshter sighed. "Quite a lot has happened since, no?"
"You might say so, Essie!" (ch. 24)

Description: In November 1938 after a night of terror for Jews across Germany, Dr. Franz Adler, a surgeon in Vienna, flees to Shanghai, China with his young daughter Hannah and his brother's widow, Esther. At a refugee hospital, Franz befriends Sunny, a nurse and the daughter of an American mother and a Chinese doctor. Franz struggles to keep the refugee hospital open and protect Hannah and Esther under deprivation, danger, and under Japanese occupation of the city. The danger escalates when Germany demands the return of Shanghai's Jews to Germany.

The Far Side of the Sky focuses on a short but extraordinary period of Chinese, Japanese, and Jewish history when cultures converged and heroic sacrifices were part of a quest for survival. (publisher)

Comments: I've long been interested in this period of history - Shanghai before and during occupation by the Japanese. I have also read about the German Jews who escaped to Shanghai, the only place left that would accept them, just before WWII began. Shanghai became a refuge at the same time for the White Russians, those displaced by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. These two groups joined the millions of Chinese refugees displaced by war and the Japanese presence, occupying the overcrowed multi-ethnic city of Shanghai.

What is fascinating about The Far Side of the Sky are other little know historical facts the book brings to light. Many German Jews settled in Shanghai and only left in the late 1940s when Mao Tse Tung expelled all foreigners from China. Also new to me was that the occupying Japanese refused to turn over the Jews in Shanghai to their allies, the Germans.

Very well written, Daniel Kalla' novel interweaves historical facts and persons into a story of  family, survival and humanity in an account of one part of one of the most devastating periods in modern history. He makes clear at the end of the book just what is history and what fiction.

Daniel Kalla  practices emergency medicine in Vancouver, British Columbia. This book parallels his family history of surviving the Holocaust, although he says the story is not his specific family history. He has written several other books which have been translated into eleven languages. Visit his website at http://danielkalla.com

The Prodigal Son by Colleen McCullough

Title: The Prodigal Son: A Carmine Delmonico Novel by Colleen McCullough
Published November 6, 2012; Simon and Schuster
Genre: thriller, crime fiction

Opening sentences:
"Daddy, what's the procedure when I'm missing a toxin?" 
Patrick O"Donnell's startled blue eyes flew to his daughter's face, expecting to see it laughing at having successfully pulled Daddy's leg. But it was frowning, troubled. He gave her a mug of coffee. "It depends, honey," he said calmly. "What toxin?" 

DESCRIPTION: 1969. A lethal toxin, extracted from the blowfish, is stolen from a laboratory at Chubb University. Biochemist Millie Hunter reports the theft at once to her father, Medical Examiner Patrick O’Donnell. Patrick’s cousin Captain Carmine Delmonico is on the case when the bodies start to mount up.

A sudden death at a dinner party and another at a gala black-tie event seem to be linked only by the poison and the presence of Dr. Jim Hunter, a scientist on the brink of greatness and husband to Millie. A black man married to a white woman, Jim has faced scandal and prejudice for most of his life, so what would cause him to risk it all now? Is he being framed for murder—and if so, by whom? Carmine and his detectives follow the trail through the university town’s crowd of eccentrics. (publisher)

Arsenic and Old Cake by Jacklyn Brady

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB; choose sentences at random from your current read. Identify author and title for readers.

Title: Arsenic and Old Cake by Jacklyn Brady
Published November 6, 2012; Berkley
Genre: cozy, mystery
Setting: New Orleans

"Try to be reasonable, Rita. We can't keep everyone working full-time right now." Edie Bryoe, office manger at Zydeco Cakes, pushed an ominous-looking stack of documents across the desk toward me. (ch. 1)

DESCRIPTION: With business going stale at Zydeco Cakes, Rita has plenty to worry about. But when the blind trumpet player Old Dog Leg Magee asks for a favor, she can’t say no. His brother Monroe disappeared forty years ago, and now someone has shown up claiming to be him. Old Dog Leg needs Rita to find out if it’s really his brother.

Posing as newlyweds, Rita and her friend Gabriel check in to The Twisted Palms Bed and Breakfast, only to discover that Monroe’s true identity isn’t the only mystery to solve. When another guest at the Twisted Palms turns up dead, it seems the mystery man might also be a murderer.

What's your teaser this week?

Book Review: ELEGY FOR EDDIE by Jacqueline Winspear

Title: Elegy for Eddie: a Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear
Published: October 30, 2012; Harper Perennial
Genre: historical mystery
Source: publisher

Maisie Dobbs, private investigator in London, 1933, is asked by Covent Garden costoermongers -fruit and vegetable sellers - to find the person or persons behind the suspicious death of Eddie Pettit, a simple minded man who had a special gift understanding and working with horses. Eddie was hit and killed by a massive roll of paper that had fallen from a conveyor belt in a paper manufacturing firm owned by an important newspaperman. To Eddie's friends, the incident was not an accident but deliberate.

The mystery plot is tied to a larger scenario - Britain's preparing way in advance for a likely war with Hitler's Germany.

Comments: The plot moves well - the life and death of Eddie Pettit, a simple worker, integrated with the larger political scene in England in 1933.

This was my first introduction to Maisie Dobbs and to her lover James Compton, who unlike Maisie, belongs to a privileged and wealthy English family. I wish I had met Maisie in her first books and read about her early struggles growing up in the working class and the gradual improvement in her life before this book, which seems to be the ninth in the series. I felt as I read along I had missed out on a whole lot about Maisie and would have appreciated the character better if I had seen how she had developed. Nevertheless, this can be a stand alone read.

Book Review: ALLERGIC TO DEATH by Peg Cochran

Title: Allergic to Death by Peg Cochran
Published August 7, 2012; Berkely Paperback
Genre: mystery, cozy

"Did you happen to notice if she ate anything while she was at the theater?"
"As a matter of fact, yes." Gigi began closing up the containers. "I'd just delivered her lunch ---" (ch. 2)

Gigi Fitzgerald delivers her home-prepared meals to customers in her hometown, Woodstone, Conn. Someone tampers with the food container meant for a restaurant reviewer and pours peanut oil over the melba toast appetizers.

The reviewer goes into a fatal anaphylactic shock after popping one of the toasts into her mouth, driving off, and crashing her car headlong into a tree, Gigi insists to police she never uses peanut products in her recipes, especially knowing her customer's allergy.

There are several people who might have wanted the reviewer dead, however: the cast of the play rehearsing at the Woodstone Theater; the reviewer's ex-husband or his current wife; a restaurant owner who was terrified he would be given a bad review that could ruin his business, other people who have had bad reviews in the past...

Comments: The plot was very well developed and though death-by-allergic-reaction-to-food is not a new device in mystery novels, Allergic to Death was especially well done. It kept you guessing, even though at the very end, the identity of the culprit was not a complete surprise. The motive was a surprise, however.

Gigi is a new character on the cozy mystery scene and she has two love interests which I can tell will be developed in the next books. I am looking forward to the next in this new series.

Thanks to the publisher for a review copy of this book.