The Stone Boy

This is a wonderful mystery/drama/psychological thriller, translated from the French. It's not my usual type of novel, but I became totally engrossed and couldn't put it down. It's intriguing, amusing, surprising, and sometimes troubling.

The Stone Boy is really the story of Elsa Preau, and elderly lady who returns to her house after several years in a "convalescent" home. In the years she has been gone the neighborhood has changed, and houses have been built just across the street from hers, allowing her to see from her window into the neighbor's garden. There she sees what appears to be a neglected, even abused child, who she comes to call the Stone Boy because he's always playing with the rocks in the garden. But no one else has ever seen the Stone Boy - is he even real?

Through a series of flashbacks, conversations, journal entries, and letters, we learn that Madame Preau has a history of a somewhat tenuous grasp on reality, and has enjoyed (or suffered from) relations with spirits in the past. Is the boy just another of these? Or is he a real child suffering from horrible abuse? The way the case builds in one direction - well, I won't ruin it, but I have to say I was taken by surprise again and again in this novel.

The author, Sophie Loubiere, and the translator, Nora Mahoney, really explore the idea of reliable vs. unreliable characters, and sort of leak information to drag you deeper and deeper into the story. I highly recommend it.

The Stone Boy

Blood Magick

So this is the third book of Nora Roberts' Cousins O'Dwyer trilogy, about the family of good witches fighting the evil witch who is out to destroy them. I enjoyed the first two books, and I enjoyed this one too - but, as I've said before, Nora is just getting a little predictable and boring.

Each of the books in the trilogy focuses on bringing a couple together - along with fighting the evil witch Cabhan - and this third one focuses on Branna and Fin, who've loved each other since they were teenagers but can't be together because Fin carries Cabhan's mark, meaning he has Cabhan's blood, and Branna's ancestor Sorcha placed the curse on Cabhan's bloodline because he killed her husband before destroying her. Branna and Fin are interesting and attractive characters (are any of Nora's heroes/heroines not?), and they have great repartee, but let's face it, we all knew when we opened the book that they were going to wind up together, right?

I am generally a big fan of mystical realism and witchcraft and the power of three (Charmed is one of my favorite TV series), but this book was predictable, and the final battle with Cabhan wasn't really all that exciting. I think Nora has played this theme out.

Blood Magick

The Patron Saint of Ugly

I LOVED this book! Marie Manilla has created a cast of characters so vivid, and interesting, and charming (for the most part), that I just could not put it down. This is mystical realism at its best!

Garnet Ferrari is born in Sweetwater, West Virginia, circa 1950. She's a perfect little red-haired baby, except that her body is entirely covered by port-wine birthmarks showing a map of the world. Garnet's older brother is, of course, the most beautiful little blond-headed child ever to exist, making Garnet feel inadequate, to say the least (the pointing and comments from the neighborhood kids don't help). So Garnet's Nonna Diamante creates the legend of Saint Garnet, a long-ago Sicilian girl who was saved from the flames of Mt. Etna by her devotion to God. Then Garnet starts performing miracles.

The story is told from an interesting perspective - the Church has heard of Garnet and sent an investigator from Rome. He leaves a questionnaire for her to fill out, and she does so by recording a series of tapes for him. So we get the story from Garnet's perspective - mostly (there are some interruptions from Nonna). It's a sad, funny, sometimes tragic story, but the ending is just spectacular.

The Patron Saint of Ugly

The Just City

I loved this novel by Jo Walton! She writes science fiction that doesn't feel like science fiction, and this could be an appropriate Young Adult novel but it's definitely for adults. It's a really gripping story that makes the reader think!

Here's the plot: the goddess Athena thinks it would be interesting to create Plato's Republic, as he described in his writings. So she brings together all the scholars who are interested in the same thing - just plucks them out of time when they pray to her - and brings them to Atlantis, in the time long before it will be swallowed by the sea. Together with worker robots Athena has brought from the distant future, these scholars, or "masters," create a city, which they then populate with 10,000 ten-year-old children, bought as slaves from markets in the early Christian era. One of those children is Athena's brother Apollo, who became human in order to be part of Athena's experiment and learn what humanity is like. The masters plan to raise the children to become their most excellent selves, philosopher kings, in the Just City of Plato's ideal.


Everything is going along fine, with most of the children and masters embracing all that the Just City is supposed to be. But then Socrates shows up, and he raises questions that no one had considered before. What follows are debates about slavery, humanity, the role of women, deities, and other moral questions.

This is definitely a novel of the mind, but there is enough action (and even sex) to keep most readers' attention. My only real issue is that it ends rather precipitously, but I'm pretty sure it's the first book of a trilogy so I'll be on the edge of my seat for book two!

The Just City

Jane Austen's First Love

I loved this book! It's a MUST read for all the Austenites out there. Syrie James does an amazing job of capturing the language, tone, and feeling of Jane Austen, and writes an entertaining story to boot.

The story tells of the summer that 15-year-old Jane and her sister Cassandra attended a month-long celebration of her brother Edward's engagement, where she meets the charming and handsome Edward Taylor. It's a fun and entertaining romance, and James cleverly weaves in episodes from Austen's novels as being experienced by Jane - because, after all, we would assume Jane wrote from experience, right? So we've got a carriage accident (Sanditon), a play production (Mansfield Park), and of course a failed attempt at matchmaking (Emma). Additionally, the characters of Jane and Cassandra are very much like Elizabeth and Jane Bennet from Pride and Prejudice.

The author's note at the end of the novel says that most of the characters were actual people, and most of the settings were the actual places they lived, so the research is impressive. But more than that, this is just an enjoyable novel that Austenites will get a little something extra from, but which everyone can enjoy.

Jane Austen's First Love

How the Scots Invented the Modern World

First, I have to say a big thank you to my friend Shari for giving me this book in our gift swap at the holidays. It was great! I have really been into Scottish culture while reading the Outlander series, so it was interesting to see what aspects of those novels were based on historical fact, and which were pure fiction. But it was also really interesting to read about how much of our modern world can be traced directly back to a Scotsman, or to something of the Scottish culture.

For instance, did you know that 18th century Scotland was the most literate society in the world? Yep, they had something like a 75% literacy rate, which some countries don't even have now. And did you know that most of our Ivy League universities come from the Scottish model of higher education? And of course there are a few interesting guys like David Hume, Adam Smith, and Sir Walter Scott... among many, many others.The book debunks a few "facts" as well, including one about Highlanders and their plaids (no, not that one).

If you're of Scottish descent - or just enjoy reading about Scottish culture - you will really enjoy this book. It's scholarly without being too heavy. And here is my favorite quote from the book, the one that sort of sums it all up:

The Scots did not invent technology, anymore than they invented science - or capitalism or the ideas of progress and liberty. But just as in these other cases, the version of technology we live with most closely resembles the one that Scots ... organized and perfected." (p. 321)

Isn't that cool?

How the Scots Invented the Modern World

A Breath of Snow and Ashes

Ok, so I realize I haven't posted here in about a month. That's because I was reading this sixth installment of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series - it's almost 1,500 pages long! Thank goodness I read it on my Nook, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to carry it on the train.

This is another great book from Gabaldon about Jamie and Clare Fraser and their family. As a reminder, Jamie is a Scotsman who came to the American colonies after being imprisoned by the British following the Jacobite rebellion, and Clare is his 20th century time-traveling wife. They've got their 20th century time-traveling daughter Brianna and her husband Roger (also a time traveler) with them too. The action in this book takes place in the 3 years leading up to the Revolutionary war, which Clare and Brianna have told Jamie all about, and he needs to decide when he will show that he's pro-rebellion.

As with all of Gabaldon's books, there is a LOT of detail about day-to-day life in 18th century North Carolina, really interesting supporting characters, and lots of historical action and adventure. We also run into some other time travelers, and get reacquainted with some villains from former books. This is a wonderful - if long - read and I highly recommend it.

A Breath of Snow and Ashes