Saturday, April 15, 2023

What Strange Paradise - Omar El Akkad


 Title: What Strange Paradise (Bookshop.org)

Author: Omar El Akkad

Published: 2022 (first published 2021)

Genre: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary

Edition: Paperback

Source: Surrey Libraries

Thoughts:  I really wanted to like the book, as I thought, and the others in my library book club also thought, that it would be a good read.  And it was a good read; it's just that I couldn't get into it with the two different timelines that the author gave for the book.  The book really needs to be read either closely or multiple times to really understand the two main timelines.  It is definitely a fairly quick read, if you just want to go through it once, but I think that if you really want to understand the book, you may want to read it many times.

Bottom line: A really excellent read that needs to read multiple times to get a complete understanding of it.  I just feel like there was something more to the book that I missed that would have completed my understanding of the book better. Recommended.

Rating: 3.5/5

Description: From the widely acclaimed author of American War a new novel--beautifully written, unrelentingly dramatic, and profoundly moving--that brings the global refugee crisis down to the level of a child's eyes.

More bodies have washed up on the shores of a small island. Another over-filled, ill-equipped, dilapidated ship has sunk under the weight of its too many passengers: Syrians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Palestinians, all of them desperate to escape untenable lives in their homelands. And only one has made the passage: nine-year-old Amir, a Syrian boy who has the good fortune to fall into the hands not of the officials but of Vanna: a teenage girl, native to the island, who lives inside her own sense of homelessness in a place and among people she has come to disdain. And though she and the boy are complete strangers, though they don't speak a common language, she determines to do whatever it takes to save him.

In alternating chapters, we learn the story of the boy's life and how he came to be on the boat; and we follow the girl and boy as they make their way toward a vision of safety. But as the novel unfurls, we begin to understand that this is not merely the story of two children finding their way through a hostile world, it is the story of our collective moment in this time: of empathy and indifference, of hope and despair--and of the way each of those things can blind us to reality, or guide us to a better one.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Thursday, March 30, 2023

Another update




I bet you are wondering why I am doing another update.  This time there is a very specific reason and that is that I have decided to become an affiliate for Bookshop.org.  A number of book sites that I frequent use Bookshop.org, as they raise money for local bookshops.  For those in Canada, you can't do this but hopefully at some point there will be Canadian independent bookstores available for you to support.

So what does this mean for you?  Other than supporting a local independent bookstore, nothing really.  But it does mean that I can receive a small commission on each purchase that you make on the site, in addition to supporting your local independent bookstore.  This is also to say that there will be now be links to books that you can go and purchase and I can get a little extra money, if you choose to do so.  Also you can purchase lots of other books through my store and I will get a small commission on those purchases as well.

If you are interested, I have posted a link on my sidebar, but you can click on the link below and save it to your links.  Hope you find lots of wonderful books to read.

Jayne's Books Bookshop

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

It's been awhile


 

When I came back to look at my blog a few days ago, I hadn't realized how long it had been since I had been here.  The last 3 years have been chaotic to say the least.  

Unless you had been living in a cave, Covid-19 was striking as I wrote my last post and my anxiety was really starting to spike to the point that I felt that I could do absolutely nothing and I lost a lot of weight super quickly; I couldn't eat a lot.  But my parents came to my rescue and I went to live with them for a few months during those first few months of the pandemic.  I had planned to go to Mexico for a birthday trip in May 2020, but that was put on hold until we could go down with no restrictions.  

But the thing that took up a lot of my time in the last three years is my diagnosis of breast cancer in September 2021.  I had been in a car accident in late July 2021 and a few days later, I had noticed a shooting pain in my left breast.  I had a phone appointment with my family doctor the next day and mentioned to her what was going on.  She had me come into the office for a breast exam and then referred me to the breast health clinic.  After a series of tests and exams, it was determined that I had breast cancer that was locally advanced, meaning that it hadn't spread beyond my left arm pit and left breast area.  Within a month of my diagnosis, I had started my chemotherapy treatments, which I went to once a week from October 8 until December 30, 2021 and then every three weeks until March 3, 2022.  I then had my mastectomy on April 4, in which it was found that the cancer had gone from the size of my palm to the size of my thumbnail.  Yes they got all of the cancer and then I was put onto tamoxifen and had my radiation treatments from about June 29, 2022 until August 8, 2022.  I only recently got discharged from the cancer unit.

And now I wait for my second surgery to complete my reconstruction (I started it when I did my mastectomy last April) and when the healing from that is done, I will be able to move on with my post cancer life.

As for my reading life, I have been reading lots.  In 2020, I read about 125 books and really enjoyed The Giver of Stars by JoJo Moyes and The Splendid and The Vile by Erik Larsen.  In 2021 I read 83 books and really enjoyed The Rose Code by Kate QuinnThe Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams, and The Last Green Valley by Mark Sullivan.

2022 was a bit of a wonky year for reading.  I got about 50 books read and there were some months in which I only got one book read.  But surprisingly, there were a number of books that were standouts in 2022.  Some of the standouts were: Beach Read by Emily HenryThe Midnight Library by Matt HaigHamnet and Judith by Maggie O'FarrellGod Spare the Girls by Kelsey MckinneyJesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du MezWhere the Crawdads Sing by Delia OwensThe Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley HellerBooth by Karen Joy FowlerGreenwood by Michael Christie, and The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton.  I suppose some years its not about the quantity read but the quality of the book that you have read (the Hamnet and Judith book is the same one that was published just as Hamnet; don't know why the Canadian publishers added and Judith).

I also joined  The StoryGraph sometime last year and am really enjoying it over there (yes, I am still on Goodreads). You can find my StoryGraph account over here.  I am also quite active on Litsy as well and continue to post my book reviews over on Instagram.

Anyways, I am off to do some reading for my book club that is meeting on Saturday.  I really do loathe Order of the Phoenix and while it's not my least favourite book, it's my least favourite book in the Harry Potter series.

Happy Reading everyone! 

Sunday, January 19, 2020

The Chaperone - Laura Moriarty

Title: The Chaperone
Author: Laura Moriarty
Published: 2013 (first published 2012)
Pages: 402
Genre: Historical Fiction
Edition: Paperback
Source: Surrey Public Library

Description: Only a few years before becoming a famous silent-film star and an icon of her generation, a fifteen-year-old Louise Brooks leaves Wichita, Kansas, to study with the prestigious Denishawn School of Dancing in New York. Much to her annoyance, she is accompanied by a thirty-six-year-old chaperone, who is neither mother nor friend. Cora Carlisle, a complicated but traditional woman with her own reasons for making the trip, has no idea what she’s in for. Young Louise, already stunningly beautiful and sporting her famous black bob with blunt bangs, is known for her arrogance and her lack of respect for convention. Ultimately, the five weeks they spend together will transform their lives forever.
 
For Cora, the city holds the promise of discovery that might answer the question at the core of her being, and even as she does her best to watch over Louise in this strange and bustling place she embarks on a mission of her own. And while what she finds isn’t what she anticipated, she is liberated in a way she could not have imagined. Over the course of Cora’s relationship with Louise, her eyes are opened to the promise of the twentieth century and a new understanding of the possibilities for being fully alive.

Thoughts: I first read the book back in April 2013 and in the almost 7 years since I had read the book, I had forgot large portions of the book, but reading it brought back quite a bit of it back.  Reading it for the second time made me sympathize more with Cora and made me more aware of the actual story line than I had been the first time I had read it and I think I enjoyed it more this time around, but really did feel that the third part was too rushed and made little sense.

Bottom line: I enjoyed the book just as much as I did the first time around, but I empthetized with Cora much more this time around and would recommend the book.

Rating: 4/5

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Eternally Artemisia - Melissa Muldoon




Book Details:

Book Title:  Eternally Artemisia : Some loves, like some women, are timeless by Melissa Muldoon
Category:  Adult Fiction (18+),  312 pages
Genre: Fiction General, Fiction Women
Publisher:  Matta Press
Release date:  March 2019
Tour dates: June 3 to 28, 2019
Content Rating: PG-13 + M (The themes of the book deal with rape and overcoming sexual abuse. It is a book about female empowerment and how with the right tools, and support women may rise above past tragedies to build a better future for themselves.)

Book Description:

They say some loves travel through time and are fated to meet over and over again. For Maddie, an art therapist, who wrestles with the “peculiar feeling” she has lived previous lives and is being called to Italy by voices that have left imprints on her soul, this idea is intriguing. Despite her best efforts, however, proof of this has always eluded her. That is, until one illuminating summer in Italy when Maddie’s previous existences start to bleed through into her current reality. When she is introduced to the Crociani family—a noble clan with ties to the seventeenth-century Medici court that boasts of ancestors with colorful pasts—she finally meets the loves of her life. One is a romantic love, and another is a special kind of passion that only women share, strong amongst those who have suffered greatly yet have triumphed despite it.

As Maddie's relationship develops with Artemisia Gentileschi—an artist who in a time when it was unheard of to denounce a man for the crime of rape, did just that—Maddie discovers a kindred spirit and a role model, and just what women are capable of when united together.

In a journey that arcs back to biblical days and moves forward in time, Maddie encounters artists, dukes, designers, and movie stars as well as baser and ignoble men. With Artemisia never far from her side, she proves that when we dare to take control of our lives and find the “thing” we are most passionate about, we are limitless and can touch the stars.

Thoughts: Having read Ms. Muldoon’s previous two novels, I knew that I wanted to read her latest book. And having read this latest installment of her Italy novels, I really enjoyed this book, although I had a thing or two that I thought could have been done better.


For the things that I didn’t like about the book I didn’t like how the book was concluded.  I felt that the author could have brought the book full-circle rather than just end it where she did.  Also I felt that the first two parts could have been a little shorter or the final two parts could have been a little longer.

But that being said, I really quite enjoyed the book, especially the first two parts.  I have several reasons that I enjoyed the book.  The first reason that I enjoyed the book was that I felt that Ms. Muldoon’s writing was much better from her first two books, even though I really enjoyed those ones as well.  But you can really see the growth of the author’s writing over the course of the three books.  Secondly I enjoyed the book because the author drew her main characters very well.  One really felt that you were there right beside Maddie as she went into these parallel lives.  Finally I felt that I could just enjoy the book and not really care about what was going on in the outside world.

Bottom line: I quite enjoyed the read, despite having a couple of things that I felt could have been improved upon.  Highly recommended.

Rating: 4.25/5


Praise for Eternally Artemisia:

“A true Renaissance woman, Melissa Muldoon weaves her passions for art and Italy into a stirring saga that sweeps across centuries. As her time-traveling heroine Maddie reconnects with kindred souls, we meet Artemisia Gentileschi, the 17th-century artist who overcame rape and ignominy to gain respect and acclaim. Historic figures such as Galileo and Mussolini also come to life in this intricately plotted novel, but the women who defy all constraints to take control of their destinies are the ones who prove to be eternally fascinating.” -- Dianne Hales

What a lovely story! Melissa weaves the lives of 4 women across time, all with some connection to Artemisia Gentileschi, a 16th century Italy painter. They represent the feminine strength that arises from life challenges, each with their unique intelligence. Underlying their stories is the idea that love transcends all, even time, love is timeless. As with her other books, Melissa fills the story out with interesting facts and references to the Italian life, culture and it's history, her attention to detail is immaculate . I loved all of the many connections in this story that tied it all together, very cleverly done. Wonderful read, I would highly recommend it. – Lize, Amazon Reviewer

Melissa Muldoon does a phenomenal job blending fiction, romance, art history, and the Italian language into this gem. For fans of historical fiction, romance, and time travel, I strongly recommend this novel. –Exemplary Editing, Amazon Review

To read reviews, please visit Melissa Muldoon's page on Italy Book Tours.



Buy the Book:



Meet the Author:


  

Melissa Muldoon is the author of three novels set in Italy: “Dreaming Sophia,” “Waking Isabella,” and “Eternally Artemisia.” All three books tell the stories of American women and their journeys of self-discovery to find love, uncover hidden truths, and follow their destinies to shape a better future in Italy.

Melissa is also the author of the Studentessa Matta website, where she promotes the study of Italian language and culture through her dual-language blog written in Italian and English (studentessamatta.com). Studentessa Matta means the “crazy linguist” and has grown to include a podcast, Tutti Matti per l'Italiano and the Studentessa Matta YouTube channel, Facebook page and Instagram feed. Melissa also created Matta Italian Language Immersion Programs, which she co-leads with Italian schools in Italy to learn Italian in Italy. Through her website, she also offers the opportunities to live and study in Italy through Homestay programs. Melissa has a B.A. in fine arts, art history and European history from Knox College, a liberal arts college in Galesburg, Illinois, as well as a master's degree in art history from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

She has also studied painting and art history in Florence. She is an artist, designer, and illustrated the cover art for all three of her books. Melissa is also the managing director of Matta Press. As a student, Melissa lived in Florence with an Italian family. She studied art history and painting and took beginner Italian classes. When she returned home, she threw away her Italian dictionary, assuming she’d never need it again, but after launching a successful design career and starting a family, she realized something was missing in her life. That “thing” was the connection she had made with Italy and the friends who live there. Living in Florence was indeed a life-changing event. Wanting to reconnect with Italy, she decided to start learning the language again from scratch. As if indeed possessed by an Italian muse, she bought a new Italian dictionary and began her journey to fluency—a path that has led her back to Italy many times and enriched her life in countless ways. Now, many dictionaries and grammar books later, she dedicates her time to promoting Italian language studies, further travels in Italy, and sharing her stories and insights about Italy with others. Melissa designed and illustrated the cover art for Eternally Artemisia, Waking Isabella, and Dreaming Sophia.

She also curates the Dreaming Sophia Art History blog site and Pinterest site: The Art of Loving Italy, where you will find companion pictures for all three books. Visit MelissaMuldoon.com for more information about immersion trips to learn the language with Melissa in Italy, as well as the Studentessa Matta blog for practice and tips to learn the Italian language.

​Connect with the author:  Website  ~  Twitter  ~  Facebook  ~  Pinterest  ~ Instagram



Thursday, June 13, 2019

Burton Blake - Robert Tucker










Book Details:

Book Title:  Burton Blake by Robert Tucker
Category:  Adult Fiction, 518 pages
Genre:  Historical Fiction
Publisher:  Tell-Tale Publishing Group LLC / Wise Words Publishing
Release date:  1/06/2019
Tour dates: May 27 to June 28, 2019
Content Rating: G (Depictions of violence are minimal. No bad language, religious expletives, sex scenes, drug use or underage drinking.)

Book Description: 

In this sequel to the well-received The Revolutionist, the American journey of three generations locks the neophyte company president, Burton Blake, in a vicious struggle with corporate intrigue, financial greed, and social corruption. Born to a taxi dancer at the beginning of the Second World War, Burton’s father, Elias Blake, never knows his natural father, who is killed in the South Pacific. He is raised by his mother and stepfather from her second marriage who makes his fortune during the post-war real estate boom of the ’50s. Their untimely death by his business partner leaves the boy Elias in the guardianship of his mother’s best friend and her marine vet husband who introduces him to the macho culture of guns and hunting.

Elias’s youth is influenced by the adult world’s drive for personal material gain. Over the next decades, he expands his parents’ original real estate empire into the diversified multi-divisional, multi-national corporation that he leaves to his son, Burton. Upon his forced return from traveling and working with oppressed third world people, Burton learns increasingly more about the true nature of his deceased father as he undertakes the challenges of leading the company in a new direction.

Thoughts:  

I quite enjoyed the book.  I can't really say what it was, but this book seemed to flow a bit more than The Revolutionist did.  I quite liked Burton, as he definitely was a product of his great-grandmother Julie, who was the main character in The Revolutionist.  And Burton in his own way became a revolutionist in trying to fight against the greed and corruption that had enveloped his father’s company.


I also really liked the first section of the book, which laid the groundwork for the second part and it really set up the conflict that would eventually envelope the second half of the book.

What I would have liked to see more of would be of Burton being able to connect his actions to those that Julie undertook herself back in the early 1900s and to also find out the history behind his father in the second half, as it was more about the conspiracy, which did get a little cumbersome as the book came to its conclusion.  Also I would have tried to use a different title for the book, as I felt it was misleading for the first half of the book and also done a bit more to tie the first part with the second part.    The first part could have easily been its own book and completely separate from the second part, which I felt had little to do with the first part and ignored the first half of the book

I would have also liked to see the book edited a little tighter, as I felt that there were too many details that didn’t make any sense to the overall story and felt that unlike The Revolutionist, which was a continuous story of Julie’s early life, this book felt like two separate stories that had little to do with each other.  I would have liked to see more characters from the first half of the book interact with Burton instead of just Lizzie.

Bottom line: It was a good book overall.  I would have liked to see more links between the first and second part of the book and few more callbacks to The Revolutionist.

Rating: 3.75/5





​Buy the Book:




Add to Goodreads





Watch the book trailer: 







Meet the Author: 







 
​Robert is published by Tell-Tale Publishing Group LLC / Wise Words Publishing under a multi-book contract. The author of four previous earlier novels, Robert infuses his books with unique dynamic stories and characters that portray social and cultural conflicts of their time. His career encompasses many years as a business consultant that have given him access to a wide range of organizations and an appreciation for people in all areas of society. His life experience is reflected in the literary quality of his work. Born and raised in the Middle-West, he has traveled throughout the United States and abroad.

Now retired, he resides with his wife in Southern California where he devotes full-time to writing. Robert is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara with a Masters Degree in Communications at the University of California, Los Angeles where he received the Samuel Goldwyn and Donald Davis Literary Awards.

An affinity for family and the astute observation of generational interaction pervade his novels. His works are literary and genre upmarket fiction that address the nature and importance of personal integrity.

Connect with the author:   Website  ~ Twitter ~ Facebook












Monday, June 3, 2019

The Revolutionist - Richard Tucker






Book Details:

Book Title:  The Revolutionist by Robert Tucker
Category:  Adult Fiction, 649 pages
Genre:  Historical Fiction
Publisher:  Tell-Tale Publishing Group LLC / Wise Words Publishing
Release date:  12/03/2017
Tour dates: May 27 to June 28, 2019
Content Rating: PG + M (This book does not contain any gratuitous violence. Any depicted violence is relevant to the historical period, as are scenes of white slave prostitution, sexual and physical abuse, and one of an abortion mill. They are written with sensitivity as to time and place and with appropriate literary language.)

Book Description:

Two different families escape from the political tyranny of their respective homelands, the Josephsons from Sweden and Matias and Kurt Bauman, brothers from Germany and Austria Hungary, with the aid of a Viennese opera diva, Sophie Augusta Rose, and Jean Guenoc, a former Jesuit priest, family friend and protector and partisan of the French underground. Their journey brings them to America in the throes of the industrial revolution during the 1890s and early 1900s.

Ingrid and Olaf Josephson settle on a small wheat farm in North Central Minnesota to raise their children, Newt and Julie. Among the Jewish entrepreneurs forced to leave Germany and Austria-Hungary, Matias and Kurt Bauman re-establish their transportation company in Chicago, Illinois. In search of a secret list of insurgent social democrats, the bounty hunter assassin, Luther Baggot, tracks his victims to the American heartland. Following the murder of their mother and father, Newt, Julie, and their friends, Aaron and Beth Peet, hide from the killer in a Northern Minnesota logging camp. Believing the children have taken possession of the list, Luther tracks them down and they are forced to flee again, this time to Chicago where a different world opens up to them as they are thrust into the turmoil and violence of an urban society and economy careening into the new century.


Review:

I didn't read the description, so I came into the book completely cold.  I knew nothing of potential plot lines and so forth.  So had I actually read the description of the book, my initial impressions of the book would have been a lot different than they actually were.

There were times I felt that the book was a bit clunky at times and that the author took too much time to introduce characters that had little to do with the actual plot line.  While those stories were fascinating, I felt that they took away from the main crux of the book and those characters could have had less screen time than they did, as some of them had either very little or nothing to do with the actual story.

As for the main story line, I actually quite enjoyed it and found myself racing through the secondary storylines to get back to the main plot line.  The author did an excellent job of drawing the reader into the storyline, making one care for the characters as they navigated the world they became involved with.  One could almost feel as though they were a fly on the wall as the characters made their way from Minnesota to Chicago and the various other places that the book was set in.

My favourite character was Julie in the book.  I thought the character was well-written and she really captured my imagination and could actually see here at times.

I thought it overall was a pretty good book and with a few editing changes, it could have been a bit better.  Recommended.

Rating: 3.75/5


Buy the Book:




Add to Goodreads





Watch the book trailer:
















Meet the Author: 








 
​Robert is published by Tell-Tale Publishing Group LLC / Wise Words Publishing under a multi-book contract. The author of four previous earlier novels, Robert infuses his books with unique dynamic stories and characters that portray social and cultural conflicts of their time. His career encompasses many years as a business consultant that have given him access to a wide range of organizations and an appreciation for people in all areas of society. His life experience is reflected in the literary quality of his work. Born and raised in the Middle-West, he has traveled throughout the United States and abroad.

Now retired, he resides with his wife in Southern California where he devotes full-time to writing. Robert is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara with a Masters Degree in Communications at the University of California, Los Angeles where he received the Samuel Goldwyn and Donald Davis Literary Awards.

An affinity for family and the astute observation of generational interaction pervade his novels. His works are literary and genre upmarket fiction that address the nature and importance of personal integrity.

Connect with the author:   Website  ~ Twitter ~ Facebook










What Strange Paradise - Omar El Akkad

 Title: What Strange Paradise ( Bookshop.org ) Author: Omar El Akkad Published: 2022 (first published 2021) Genre: Fiction, Contemporary, Li...