Lucky Bunny - Jill Dawson

Title: Lucky Bunny
Author: Jill Dawson
Paperback: 349 pages
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published date: October 30, 2012
FTC: Received to review for TLC Book Tours


Big oops.  I was supposed to have this posted yesterday but with the big Presidential elections going on and other fun stuff it totally escaped me.  I even sucked down and finished a week ago, so that tells you something about how much I enjoyed reading Lucky Bunny. If you are interested in a story sort of like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - but instead of going to college the character turns to a life of crimes - well this is a story for you.

Back of the book:

Queenie Dove is a self-proclaimed genius when it comes to the quintessential arts of survival and thievery. Daring, clever, and alluring, she has spent a lifetime developing the skills of an accomplished thief. Born into a criminal family in London's East End during the Great Depression, and trained by a group of women shoplifters during the Blitz, Queenie commits exploits ranging from petty street crime all the way to far more glamorous - and lucrative - heists. But giving birth to a daughter will make Queenie finally try to go straight - until the opportunity to take part in one last, audacious robbery tempts her back to the life of danger and excitement she once lived to the fullest.

Told in Queenie's captivating and singular voice, this richly colorful story and tis provocative denouement are steeped in questions of character and morality. Is Queenie a woman sinned against, or a sinner herself? Is she wicked through and through? In the spirit of Moll Flanders, Lucky Bunny is a vivid tale of trickery and adventure - and one which has a darker undertow of pain and heartbreak than its heroine prefers to admit to herself. Yes, luck often favors the Queen of Crime, but that is only part of her story.

My thoughts:

This story packs a lot of punch and was fabulously written. It's one of those books that had me GoodReading (I'm coining that phrase) her backlist, a lot of award winning or nominated books among them.  Lucky Bunny is getting a lot of nods as well.

The story is told from Queenie's perspective as she looks back in her life - and she tells you straight up that while she might embellish, the major facts are there.  Queenie likens her story more to Moll Flanders but I couldn't help but think A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  I was surprised that quite a bit of the book centered around her as a child. But that was what sucked me into the story and made me really enjoy the book -- I adore young Queenie.  Like Francie Nolan, Queenie looks out after her younger brother, adores her often abusive and jailbird father, and has to be a mother in place of her own absentee alcoholic one.  So while no one forced her to turn to crime (and she was quite brilliant so she could have gone the way of Francie Nolan) I totally sympathized and understood why she went that direction.

It's no surprise that I love history -- so young Queenie's life in Blitz London was fascinating.  We see her getting shipped out to the country with her brother.  We see her coming back and eking her existence amidst the bombs, stealing and living quite well with the Green Bottles, an absolutely fabulous group of thieving ladies who helped raise Queenie.  There's also the tragic incident of the Bethnal Green tube station which I had never even heard of!

My only disappointment with the book is that after I had so much fun with the first part, the story sort of tapered off after that.  Which is funny because I've read a few reviews where some people had the opposite problem - slow start and then it picked up.  So it's all about perspective.  I also wanted more about the last heist (SPOILER if you click on link) which again was a historical event I had never heard of and was only regaled in the last twenty pages.  So fascinating though!

I think this book could appeal to a lot of different areas: if you like history, if you like social history or women's history, if you like fascinating character studies, or if you just like being entertained by a good yarn....


Extras:

I found a different cover.  Isn't this gorgeous!  Which one do you like better?

You can also listen to an audio interview of Jill Dawson on the BBC Radio, Women's Hour

Jill’s Tour Stops

Tuesday, October 30th: Peppermint PhD

Thursday, November 1st: Unabridged Chick

Monday, November 5th: A Reader of Fictions

Wednesday, November 7th: A Library of My Own

Thursday, November 8th: Walking With Nora

Friday, November 9th: Tina’s Book Reviews

Monday, November 12th: The House of the Seven Tails

Tuesday, November 13th: West Metro Mommy

Wednesday, November 14th: Reflections of a Bookaholic

Thursday, November 15th: Jenny Loves to Read

Friday, November 16th: Creating Comfort

TBD: The House of the Seven Tails

TBD: Chaotic Compendiums

The Count of Monte Cristo Read-a-long

You all don't know how excited I am that the girls over at The Estella Society are doing The Count of Monte Cristo Read-a-long!  This is one of my all-time favorite books.  I've read it multiple times, made countless family members read it, and collect copies of it.  Yeah. Obsessed much? BUT -- it's been quite a few years and I haven't read it since I started blogging. So of course I am joining in.  I realize that being a mom and wife and all that goes into life I have limited time to read such a chunkster as well as my other books.  So I downloaded the audio book and am already on Chapter 7 -- whoohoo!

Just for fun, here's my stack of copies I own:

For some reason I can't find my original copy I got in high school - nothing special but it's irking me I can't find it. I might have loaned it out:

This is the inside of one of my old beat up copies I've acquired:

And the end paper of another old beat up copy:

I especially like finding old or unusual copies.  Although if anyone wants to get me this Barnes & Noble lovely I wouldn't stop you :)

It's also getting me in the mood to pick up Tom Reiss' new book about the real man behind the fictional story, Alexander Dumas' father:

Ever thought about reading this awesome classic?  Read it and want to read it again?  Join in!

Advent - James Treadwell

Title: Advent: A Novel
Author: James Treadwell
Hardcover: 448 pages
Publisher: Atria
Published date: July 2012
FTC: Requested from Atria


Atria Publishing company has a really cool Galley program they use and as a blogger I love seeing what they have available for request.  I picked three books and Advent was one of them.  I figured that a book with such a cool cover and the quote "Magic is rising" would be an awesome choice -- and it has a Deborah Harkness blurb on the cover too.  I was mostly right -- I loved most of the book but it kind of tapered off at the end.  This is going to be a trilogy so that's probably why I got that "eh?" feeling at the end.  I hate when trilogies do that.  Anyway -- for most of the book though I was HOOKED.  Let's see if I can blab about this one in any kind of coherent way...

The back of the book:

1537. A man hurries through city streets in a gathering snowstorm, clutching a box in one hand. He is Johann Faust, the greatest magician of his age. The box he carries contains a mirror safeguarding a portion of his soul and a small ring containing all of the magic in the world. Together, they comprise something unimaginably dangerous.

London, the present day. Fifteen-year-old Gavin Stokes is boarding a train to the countryside to live with his aunt. His school and his parents can't cope with him and the things he sees, things they tell him don't really exist. At Pendurra, Gavin finds people who are like him, who see things too. They all make the strange claim: magic exists, it's leaking back into our world, and it's bringing something terrible with it.

First in an astonishingly imaginative fantasy trilogy, Advent describes how magic was lost to humanity, and how a fifteen-year-old boy discovers that its return is his inheritance. It begins in a world recognizably our own, and ends an extraordinarily long way from where it started -- somewhere much bigger, stranger, and richer.

My thoughts:

Advent is a book mainly about Gavin Stokes and it's through his perspective we see events take place.  The story alternately flashes back in time to Johann Faust, the greatest magician in the world, who becomes a bit power crazed.  But it's Gavin's story that I loved and had me hooked.

Gavin kind of wants to be normal.  He's been seeing things he shouldn't for as long as he can remember.  His mom and especially his dad have no clue how to cope with what they see as childish antics so they ship him off to his kooky aunt who works at the odd country manor Pendurra.  (I know, another awesome story set in British manor -- The Little Stranger & The Orchid House.)  Gavin is an awesome character. I think if this book was ONLY about Gavin's journey growing up and discovering magic it would be one of my favorite books.  And to be clear, it's not a Harry Potter type of discovering magic -- no magic wands or spells....this is different, more real and definitely more terrifying.

While I wasn't as hooked by Johann Faust's story, I can see how it was needed.  And yes -- it's THAT Faust -- a real historical figure who is also the basis for a few plays where Faust makes a deal with the devil.  I kind of wish I had known more about the actual man and his legend before reading the story because it's really kind of weird.  There's actually a lot of the book towards the end that I think kind of went over my head -- legends and mythologies that I should maybe have known but really don't.  Let's just say that it starts to get weird -- like Pendurra is the site magic, legends, mythological creatures are starting to seep back into the world.

I also didn't like the way Advent ended.  The last eight pages, which weren't even the whole of the last chapter, took the reader to a whole different place.  Just a weird ending.  I get that it's going to be part of the next book but I think it should have been either sectioned off as an Afterward, a separate chapter at least, or left for the next book.

So it ended up being a tad bit of a disappointment -- mainly because for most of the book I LOVED it.  I just felt muddled at the end.  Sometimes I think that's the way I feel when I read a trilogy book.  You don't get that satisfying feeling at the end.  I also didn't like the Faust sections as well and a lot of the legend/mythological stuff kind of went over my head.

What do you think?  Does this book sound like a book you'd be interested in reading?  Do you like trilogies?  I think I'm going to give book #2 a try when it comes out and see where the story is going.

Here's an alternate cover that I don't like as much:

Also Reviewed By:

Serendipity Reviews

R.I.P. VII Wrap Up

As usual I had a great time participating in Carl V's R.I.P. VII Experience. I still need to post some reviews but here's what all I read:

The Dark Unwinding - Sharon Cameron
Shadow and Bone - Leigh Bardugo
The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters
The Winter Ghosts - Kate Mosse (audio)
Advent - James Treadwell
The Merlot Murders - Ellen Crosby (audio)
Sister - Rosamund Lupton
Heat Wave - Richard Castle (audio)

I'll be looking forward to next year's Experience!  Just for fun here's a couple of photos.

Little Rocket last year as a pumpkin:

Little Rocket this year as a monkey:

Sister - Rosamund Lupton

Title: Sister
Author: Rosamund Lupton
Paperback: 318 pages
Publisher: Broadway/Crown
Published date: 2011
FTC: requested or won from Shelf Awareness or Read It Forward (can't remember)

I'm normally pretty good about documenting where I get my books from.  I either requested or won this one but it hasn't been sitting on my shelf for very long. I do remember that I wanted to read it because I love books about family relationships - especially sisters.  I am fortunate to have had an awesome family life and am blessed with having a sister and a brother.  Now we may not always understand or get each other and there's been many a fight and even bloody nose mixed in there growing up -- but it's an amazing thing to be able to count on somebody to hop on the next plane and be by your side if you ever needed them.

Sister sounded like an interesting combination of a book about family relationships...and a murder mystery.  What a perfect moody read for Autumn and the R.I.P. experience.

Back of the book:

When Beatrice gets a frantic call that her younger sister, Tess, is missing, she immediately boards the first flight home to London. As she learns about the circumstances surrounding Tess's disappearance, Bee will risk everything to find out what really happened to her beloved younger sister. A suspenseful, thrilling story and a beautiful portrayal of the love between siblings with a knockout twist, Sister is a masterful debut.

My thoughts:

I love a back of the book synopsis that doesn't give away much.  If you are like me, that's all I needed to know to pick it up and delve right in.  If you want slightly more spoilers (of course not BIG spoilers) keep on reading -- dump out that coffee, brew up a cup of English breakfast tea and read on.

The first thing you must know is that this is Rosamund Lupton's first novel - she writes for television and film. That means that this book is beautifully visual. I love that the main part of the story takes place in London in winter and in and around Hyde Park (think a mini Central Park.)  Even though Las Vegas was in the eighties, I still felt the winter chill of London and wanted to cuddle up in a blanket and read.  I can still envision Tess's apartment and her little garden out back.

I also found the non-linear way she wrote the story to be perfect.  Beatrice is alternately telling her story to Tess in letter form which makes it very personal and telling her story to a lawyer to prepare for an upcoming trial.  I loved the letter parts to Tess - it made the sister relationship even more powerful and heartfelt. For never actually meeting Tess, I felt as if I knew her.  Every so often the story telling part to the lawyer felt a little drawn out (get on with the story so I can know who did it!), it actually helped the suspense part of the mystery and also slowed me down to savor Ms. Lupton's writing and world building.

Then there's the story.  I don't want to give too much away, but I loved the tenacity of Beatrice who knew there was something wrong and didn't let anyone stop her from finding the truth. It was a great twist on the traditional detective story.  Then there's Tess's story, which for an oddly beautiful art student, involves adultery, a stalker, pregnancy, gene therapy, cystic fibrosis...actually pretty fascinating.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed this story - it was a mystery, a detective story, and most of all a story about relationships and family.  I am looking forward to picking up Ms. Lupton's second novel Afterwards.

Other covers:

What cover do you like best? I think I like this one the best.

This one is kind of boring to me:

Also Reviewed By:
Tell Me A Story
S. Krishna's Books
Kirkus Reviews

Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow GIVEAWAY!

I'm a day late in posting this but that's ok!  Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours is letting me give away one copy of Juliet Grey's second book in her Marie Antoinette trilogy.  You don't have to have read Becoming Marie Antoinette to enjoy this one (but it's good so you should.)  Please fill out the form below!  The giveaway is open through November 2nd and is only open in the US (sorry international readers!)

Good luck!

My reviews for Becoming Marie Antoinette & Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow

Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow - Juliet Grey

Title: Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow
Author: Juliet Grey
Paperback: 399 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published date: May 2012
FTC: Received to review for HF Virtual Book Tours


When I was asked if I wanted to join in the tour for Juliet Grey's second Marie Antoinette book for Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours I was ecstatic. I adored her first book Becoming Marie Antoinette (my review) and even got a chance to chat with her over at Amy's awesome blog Passages to the Past. Juliet Grey's books are a beautiful combination of historical fact and fiction.  I fell in love with Marie Antoinette even more in this book. You can bet I will be looking forward to buying her last book in the trilogy, The Last October Sky.

(Come back tomorrow and I'll be giving away a copy of Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow!!)

The back of the book:

Paris, 1774. At the tender age of eighteen, Marie Antoinette ascends to the French throne alongside her husband, Louis XVI. But behind the extravagance of the young queen's elaborate silk gowns and dizzyingly high coiffures, she harbors deep fears for her future and that of the Bourbon dynasty.

From the early growing pains of marriage to the joy of conceiving a child, from her passion for Swedish military attache Axel von Fersen to the devastating Affair of the Diamond Necklace, Marie Antoinette tries to rise above the gossip and rivalries that encircle her. But as revolution blossoms in America, a much larger threat looms beyond the gilded gates of Versailles -- one that could sweep away the French monarchy forever.

My thoughts:

I am an official fan of this trilogy. Well done Juliet Grey! What a story.  The book starts out with a bit of foreshadowing -- it's 1786 and an unnamed women is being tried and punished for her involvement with the royalty of France. Flash back to 1774 and Papa Roi (Louis's grandfather) has passed away which means Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette will become the King and Queen (actually consort) of France.  I had no clue before reading this that the Queen of France really didn't have much power and only the King of France was "crowned" King.  In fact, reading these books I've learned a lot of things about this period in history that I had never known before. I really wish these books were around when I was learning about the French Revolution in college.

But the best part of the book is how much the story humanizes Marie Antoinette and her husband Louis XIV.  Most of the story is told in first person narrative which really made it an intimate story.  Interspersed are often letters to and from her maman, Maria Theresa of Austria.  We see how much she loved her family in Austria, but how much she came to find France and her husband her new family.  I loved her spunk -- she desperately wanted to have babies and a family but at the same time she was very much a young girl who was enjoying life which often got her into trouble.

It's such an interesting story because we all know what happens in the end. But somehow even with the forshadowing at the beginning and hints throughout about how it's going to end, I am like Marie Antoinette and just can't or won't believe that her people will turn on her and her family. Surprisingly too, I fell in love with her husband Louis XVI and feel the tragedy that the Revolution happened to a king who was so surprisingly human and full of desire to be a good king, husband, and father.

Juliet Grey has a pretty awesome section at the back of the book about writing Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow and love this quote:

"As I breathed the life into characters who to some readers may be little more than names from a history book, I saw them as vibrant and vital, complex and flawed."

This is exactly what she accomplished.  Well done!

Marie Antoinette in Muslin

Head over to Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours for more bloggers reviewing this awesome book.