A Work in Progress

Teaser Tuesday: A is for Alibi

A very (very) long time ago I read the first Kinsey Millhone mystery by Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi.  It was so long ago that now, as I reread it, I have not a tiniest sense of having ever come across the story before.  Which makes me wonder if I did indeed read it, but in any case it was weeded from my book collection (also) a very long time ago.  I somehow just wrote Sue Grafton off, but I tend to do that to US authors--a bad habit I hope to break myself of.  I always feel like books set in other places, places I am unfamiliar with, are of more interest.  Why read about places I hear about in the news every day, places I might have visited or would at least be familiar to me even if I haven't traveled there.

But a good story is a good story and I should never disregard a setting even if I think I already know it.  A character or place is not more interesting (necessarily) just by virtue of being separated by geography or language (but I will still reach for those books because I am all for expanding my horizons).  So, Kinsey and I are getting acquainted once again and I find there is much to like about her and to learn and appreciate and be entertained by. 

I like Kinsey.  She is really the consummate PI, or what I imagine a PI to be like.  She sounds like one and even lives like one.  Or what I imagine they would be like, what they are like in other novels I have read.  I like the way Sue Grafton writes.  It is accessible and engaging and (relatively quick going), but I mostly like her descriptive passages.  She gives you a lot of detail but in a way that is not overwhelming but simply paints a picture in your mind as you collect facts.  And Kinsey is direct and no nonsense.  She tells it like it is and has a wry sense of humor that comes through at just the right moments.  She is smart but smart in a street sense sort of way perhaps, or just life experience maybe.  

I am halfway through A and enjoying all the little bits that Sue Grafton, Or Kinsey, throws at you.  I like how she lives in Santa Teresa, in southern California and the little apartment she has, because she likes cramped spaces.  I like how she travels light.  But better that I share some of the descriptions as she tells the story, because she does it so much better than I can.

"My name is Kinsey Millhone.  I'm a private investigator, licensed by the state of California.  I'm thirty-two years old, twice divorced, no kids.  The day before yesterday I killed someone and the fact weighs heavily on my mind.  I'm a nice person and I have a lot of friends.  My apartment is small but I like living in a cramped space.  I've lived in trailers most of my life, but lately they've been getting too elaborate for my taste, so now I live in one room, a 'bachelorette.'  I don't have pets.  I don't have houseplants.  I spend a lot of time on the road and I don't like leaving things behind."

*******

"Santa Teresa is a Southern California town of eighty thousand, artfully arranged between the Sierra Madres and the Pacific Ocean--a haven for the abject rich.  The public buildings look like Old Spanish missions, the private homes look like magazine illustrations, the palm trees are trimmed of unsightly brown fronds, and the marina is as perfect as a picture postcard with the blue-gray hills forming a backdrop and white boats bobbing in the sunlight."

She is equally as good at describing people and sussing out their personalities and character flaws.  This is different from a cozy mystery in its presentation, but the piecing of a puzzle is still there.  In this case a woman just released from prison from killing her husband has hired Kinsey to find out who really killed him, as she has always denied any involvement with his death.  So Kinsey must go back and pick apart the facts and talk to all who knew him.  I like watching her work and being in her mind as she compiles details.  I've already go B is for Burgler and I am going to keep going and see how far through the alphabet I can get.  I am trying to catch up with Buried in Print as she has been making her way through the books as well.  It's good to have a reading partner to keep the momentum going (if I can get at leas as far as E!).

On a side note, I am on a mystery binge at the moment and need a little help.  I am looking for a readalike for Barbara Vine's A Fatal Inversion.  I read it years ago and it is a favorite novel by her.  I might just reread it, but I know it is a trope that is often used by other authors so I would like to find a new spin on the story:

"When the new owners of Wyvis Hall, a rural estate in Suffolk, set out to bury their pet dog on the grounds, they stumbled upon a ghastly relic: the bones of a woman and small child in a shallow grave. The gruesome find makes stunning headlines, especially so for the previous occupants.
 
A decade before, nineteen-year-old Adam Verne-Smith inherited the property and spent one debauched summer there with runaways, drifters, and his two best friends—none of whom have spoken since that fatal season. Adam is now a doting father and husband. His old buddy Rufus is a respectable doctor. And there’s Shiva, whose dreams of upward mobility drifted away. Unhinged by the discovery, they reunite, each with a protest of innocence. As the past slowly emerges, their regrets, desperation, and bitter incriminations get the best of them—and so will their secrets."

Any suggestions are most welcome--setting does not matter (or whether the book is new or old) as long as it has a similar feel to it.  

The Wildling Sisters by Eve Chase

Eve Chase's The Wildling Sisters begins with an attention grabbing scene of four sisters dragging a body across the lawn of a country house.  It's a swelteringly hot summer day in 1959 and one of the sisters, Margot, describes the scene.  How heavy the body is, how it snags bits of daisies as they pull it through the garden.  One sister loses her glasses.  The birds are singing and there is this summertime sleepiness to the atmosphere.  And how nausea rises in her stomach as the blood splatters on all of them marking not just the killer but the quartet of sisters.  How can you possibly resist reading on to find out just what happened that summer so long ago.

Flash forward nearly half a decade into the future and Applecote Manor, a country house full of secrets from that terrible summer so long ago, sits empty waiting for a new family to move in.  Jessie and her husband are looking for a place to start their lives together.  It's her first marriage but Will is a widower with a teenage daughter.  Jessie and Will and baby Romy are a compact unit but Bella is having trouble getting past the death of her mother and living in London with its crowds and distractions is proving a bad influence on Bella.  Living in the country, renovating a house like Applecote where there is peace and quiet and a small community seems the perfect solution to Bella's problems and a way to come together as a new family.

This is not a haunted house story, per se.  But something bad happened that fateful summer and a darkness hangs over the house.  Flora, Pam, Margot and little Dot are city girls but their single mother unloads them on their aunt and uncle one summer as she goes abroad to work.  Applecote is already hiding secrets.  Their cousin Audrey disappeared one summer several years prior.  Not a sign of where she might have gone off to, perhaps she is still alive somewhere.  Or perhaps her body is so well hidden it will never be found.  Their aunt Sybil no longer leaves Applecote and there are rumors about their uncle Perry. 

Audrey is a ghost whatever happened to her and she always hovers somewhere in the background.  Margot, closest to her when she was an actual presence is taken with the story, the mystery, of Audrey.  With three sisters who are smarter or prettier or more outgoing Margot knows she is the plain one.  Audrey always made her feel special and for that she has always had a special affinity towards her.  Even after she is gone.  Add two attractive young men into the mix and things become ever more complicated.  Cousins Harry and Tom have also come to the village where they are staying one last summer before one if off to university and the other the army.  Applecote may be a small manor house, but Cornton, where the boys are living is a proper great house shut down save for their brief stay.  

All the ingredients are ripe for mishap and misunderstanding and intrigue.  The village no longer talks about Audrey or that summer and those families.  They are the secret that is not exactly a secret but just something that is best left buried in the past.  But Jessie senses something not quite right.  When they took over Applecote the former owner had left quickly due to illness and the house was never cleared out.  There are things to uncover and discover and Bella is curious.  She is dealing with her own sadness with the death of her mother.  Mandy is another ghost hovering, but this time hovering over Jessie and her desire to be a good mother and wife.  She struggles not only with Bella's problems, with a husband away in London working more than he is at home, but also with the feeling that she will always be compared to Mandy and never quite able to match her.

I really enjoyed this story.  I felt more akin to the story of the past initially but as the story progressed and things became more complex it flipped and I wondered how it would all tie together.  There are definite overtones of Daphne du Maurier here and maybe even a little of Barbara Vine.  When a novel with parallel plotlines works, and this one does quite nicely, it can make for a rich reading experience.  I will definitely be reading more by Eve Chase.  

This was my August prompt novel for the theme "a month in the country" and it made for a good country house novel, a great end of summer read and generally speaking a nice suspenseful story, which I always love.  I am already thinking about my September book and will be sharing my book ideas soon.

Teaser Tuesday: A Chill in the Air

Last month my NYRB Classics subscription book never arrived (there should be a replacement copy in the mail now, fingers crossed), but my August book appeared just a few days into the month.  Go figure!  I read Iris Origo's War in Val d'Orcia a few years ago and was thoroughly impressed, so I was quite happy to discover that NYRB has reissued this rather slender diary she kept in 1939-1940, A Chill in the Air: An Italian War Diary.

In keeping with my resolution to keep my night table reading pile in check, I actually finished two books already this month so happily was able to reward myself with two new books and one of them had to be this diary.  If the introduction is anything to go by, I think I am going to enjoy this very much.  There will hopefully be the added satisfaction of this likely being a very quick read since the diary is less than 200 pages and with brief entries a nice way to read a bit of Italian/WW II history as well.

I have a short teaser to share.  I think the book will be curiously timely even though the events she writes about occurred more than half a century ago!

"The diary is a curious mixture of news--both fake and genuine--rumour, comment and observation.  Origo was to write later that she had joined 'the wide captive audience, all the world over, listening to confused, discordant voices coming out of a little bo'.  The radio is at the centre of this diary.  Iris and Antonio Origo and their friends gather round it, fiddle with the controls in an attempt to get the foreign stations, and anxiously discuss afterwards what they have heard.  Mussolini knows how to exploit the medium.  Propaganda pours over the airwaves.  Discerning listeners like Iris sift the bombastic output for truth."

I won't comment on how that excerpt might parallel life today, but that's history for you, I suppose.  Apparently the diary is very much about the world at large, or at least life in Italy and her village at a most interesting time in history.  There is little of the personal here.  She never meant to publish the book, it was meant to be solely for her own personal use.  I think it should be a very good picture of the times and expect I will be writing more about it here later.

[Side note--just a week in I realize, but I actually find that I very much like keeping my reading pile to a (for me that is) bare minimum--four books even seems like too much of an indulgence--maybe this won't be as hard as I was anticipating.]

How to Find Love in a Bookshop, Veronica Henry

Veronica Henry's How to Find Love in a Bookshop is pretty much a delight from first sentence to last.  How can a book about books, bookshops and readers not strike a cord among fellow book lovers.  Even the slightly dramatic or heavier elements of the story don't bog down the mind of the reader too much as you just know things are going to be resolved happily in the end.  I don't think I give away anything by saying that the endings (yes, plural) are neat and tidy, since it is the various plots that make up the story that are what makes this book such a pleasure to read.

I think I could happily live in the fictional village of Peasebrook in the heart of the Cotswolds.  Imagine a picturesque hamlet amidst the undulating fields of green.  All those lovely cottages with loads of flowers out front and tiny twisty little streets.  A real little community where everyone knows everyone else.  One perfect little bookshop serving the village run by a man who has a love of literature and books and knows his neighbors so well that they pop in for a browse and a chat.  I'd book the lone table at Thomasina's little restaurant known as A Deux she runs on weekends out of her home and have a cider at the local pub, buy cheese at the shop where Jem works and maybe be friends with June who was once an actress but now has a beautifully decorated little cottage.  Oh yes, and be a regular customer at Nightingale Books.

Nightingale Books is the heart of the story even though this is not just about the bookseller and his shop but about the whole community of Peasebrook.  (I can imagine it being made into a TV series on PBS, but I'd rather it be a real place).  The bookstore was lovingly imagined by Julius Nightingale and his wife Rebecca.  The two, he a British student at Oxford and she an American on her way home, meet and have a whirlwind romance.  It wasn't meant to work out quite the way it did.  It all happened far too fast--their falling in love and the unexpected result of a baby.  They decide, since they essentially met in a bookshop and both have a deep love of reading that maybe they should open one themselves since everything about their relationship has been quick, almost accidental and very unexpected.  But tragedy strikes and Julius is left on his own, a young man with a baby girl to raise alone. 

This is where the magic really, begins.  Out of sadness comes Nightingale Books, which is the planet around which all the characters, the residents of Peasebrook revolve.  When the story opens, Emilia has been called home from abroad where she works as her father's health has been quickly declining.  She never knew her mother and she never expected to lose her father so soon.  He never held her back from following her dreams, but when he dies she feels it is the right thing to do to come home and carry on running Nightingale Books.  She was all but raised in the shop and books have always been a part of her life, but her dream of running it is not as easily achieved as she expects. 

Julius was always more about community and passing on a love of literature to his friends and customers.  It was run with love and not with an eye solely for profits, so when Emilia takes over she finds the shop is riddled with debts that she is not sure she can pay off and turn Nightingale Books around to turn into a successful business she can make a living from.  A local property developer has had his eye on the bookstore and hopes to convince Emilia to sell but she is determined to try and make a go of it with a little help from friends.  Nothing is ever as easy as it looks, however.  

Emilia and Nightingale books may be at the center but there are many threads running through this story.  Many loves and dreams of the community that makes this such a magical read.  I found myself swept up into the daily dramas and heartbreaks, all the storylines are interlinked and they all come to satisfying resolutions but it is always the journey there that makes for the pleasant reading.  And of course the story is peppered with book and literary references.  This is perfect escapist reading to tuck away into your bag when you go to the beach or on vacation (or just sitting in your favorite chair or at your favorite coffeeshop).  Many thanks to Penguin Books for sending this my way, I had a feeling it would be right up my alley, and indeed it was.  It looks like Veronica Henry has an admirable backlist of books which I think will be fun to explore.  

Green Almonds: Letters from Palestine

When I came across an egalley of this recently released graphic novel I had to snap it up!  It is a memoir/travelogue of a Belgian writer who spent time in Palestine as a volunteer.  She spent time not only in Palestine but with Israeli friends as well.  In less than 175 pages she manages to capture a small slice of life of both Palestinians and Israelis--life on both side of the wall--very different worlds and very different lives--in some cases lives very precariously lived.

Green Almonds: Letters from Palestine is written by Anaele Hermans and illustrated by her sister, artist Delphine Hermans.  The two exchanged letters during Anaele's stay giving a glimpse into her experiences while abroad.  Graphic novels, and this one is especially well done, really amaze me.  In so few pages you get an entire story.  The illustrations are simple yet evocative, done entirely in pencil.  I really loved all the cultural bits, which you can see a little of in the choices I made for sharing some of the illustrations.  I would love to travel to this region someday.  I'm not sure I will ever get the opportunity, but books like these at least get me closer via armchair travel, right?

I'm not able to give the name of the translator sadly as there was no mention of the person in my galley copy.  I have read, however, it was originally published in France in 2011 and won an award for best travel diary from Doctors Without Borders.  Easily read in a sitting or two, this is one I warmly recommend for anyone interested in the region or for lovers of graphic novels.

Act Like It by Lucy Parker

It's rare that I gravitate towards a novel that is pure romance.  I don't mind a mystery or a literary novel or a comfort read that has a bit of romance in it, as a matter of fact I often like it when a story has that element, but it always needs to have something more as the main focus or the action driving the plot.  So when I was reading one of Book Riot's newsletters and Lucy Parker was mentioned as a writer of romance for people who don't necessarily read the genre, I decided I should give her a try. 

Her first novel, Act Like It has sat for some time on my TBR pile waiting for just the right mood, which finally surfaced recently.  It's what you might call a Rom-Com of a story.  I knew what was coming, but it was fun getting there--more of a build up of the story and light on the detailed romance-y bits, so it offered just the right tone and distraction I was in need of.

The story is set in contemporary London's West End, the heart of the theater district.  If I am going to read a romance story I kind of like the sort with two characters who would rather not be together and spend a good part of the story sparring wits and words.  There's a general mistrust that maybe even verges on dislike before they decide that, indeed, there is maybe a spark of something more there they had not anticipated.  A 'wait a moment, what's going on here' climax and then the inevitable coming together but then drama and maybe misunderstanding ensues before a happy resolution.  Okay, so it sounds pretty formulaic and maybe the arc of the story is on the predictable side, but the journey is so much fun it is hard not to just lose yourself in this book and enjoy the ride.

Mix one very condescending, attractive, successful actor with a talented, socially conscious actress who likes her chocolate and you get a perfect pairing of opposites.  Richard Troy may be a star headliner, but he's thrown one too many tantrums in public and his image is beginning to tarnish.  Significantly.  He aspires to a position in the RSPA (Royal Society of Performing Arts) but his chances seem to be diminishing at the same rate as his public escapades increase.  Lainie Graham is the theater world's sweetheart.  She's just come off a bad relationship with a fellow actor, so her social calendar is open.  Lainie has an easy going nature and a warm sense of humor but it belies the sadness her family has endured.  She spends as much of her free time raising money for a cancer charity and is always looking for opportunities to add to their coffers.

Maybe you see where this is headed?  Two actors--one whose reputation is sullied the other's whose shines?  A little public romance would do wonders to help shore up Richard Troy's ratings with the public.  Fans always love a good love story and what does it matter if they don't actually like each other.  They just need to act like it.  There is always more to a person's story than the story on the surface.  And there is more to Richard Troy and Lainie is as delightful as she appears.  The course of true love never did run smooth and it doesn't for Richard and Lainie, but they discover a few things along the way.

This is as fun and charming and enjoyable a read as it sounds.  If you think you don't like romance novels, but you're willing to give the genre a try, you might like this.  I enjoyed it so much I have her second book and there is currently a third out as well with a fourth anticipated.  So she is my go-to romance novelist now.  She writes a series set in the theater world called the London Celebrities Series (opposites attract comedies), which I think are going to be one of my happy discoveries this year.

I See You, Clare Mackintosh

I feel pretty jaded when it comes to thrillers these days.  I have been struggling with the genre and have for a while now refused to buy or borrow a book that has "girl" in the title or one that has that samey quality to it--yet another book among the crowd with a similar plot.  A cover with a girl running, her back to the reader, that sort of thing.  What annoys me most is that paranoid quality to the protagonist--she has lost her memory or drinks too much, hence a totally unreliable narrator.  (Actually normally I love unreliable narrators).  I understand paranoia when it comes to thrillers, but it can feel like an overplayed card. 

I must be jaded as I am not generally too critical about the books I read.  That said, I was really pleasantly surprised by Clare Mackintosh's I See You (which I think my friend Liz might have suggested I try).  This is a story that felt very fresh and a twisty plot that I have not come across--a story not yet told (and then riffed on by other authors).  There was a little of the paranoia-thing going on, which I understand is a technique the author uses to ratchet up the tension, but it fit the story.  I think it resonated so much because it is about the assumed anonymity of taking public transportation and who might be looking when you are not paying attention.  I take public transportation and I can see that something like this might be all too plausible.

The story is narrated by three people, Zoe Walker who takes the Tube on her daily commute and notices something odd going on, Kelly Swift, a British Transport Police officer who narrowly missed being kicked off the force after an altercation with a suspect, and in italicized print the reader is privy to the inner workings of the murderer, which is always a little unnerving.  Both Zoe and Kelly are interesting and very flawed characters and into their messy lives enters a most curious criminal act.  One day Zoe notices a photo of herself in a newspaper ad for an online dating service.  Although grainy, it is definitely a photo of her snagged from somewhere on the internet.  She begins looking for the ad each day to see if her photo reappears, but it seems as if they show a different woman each day.  Most unsettling is some of the women have been the targets of a crime usually on their daily commutes.  She begins worrying she will be next and will anyone believe her if she contacts the police with her suspicions.

Kelly has been relegated to the "dip squad", which is working the trains and patrolling for pickpockets and other crimes of theft.  It's not the most glamorous or the most interesting, but she is lucky to have a job at all.  It was Kelly who aided in one of the crimes that may be linked to the ads, and eventually she and Zoe link up.  And the criminal narrates his trolling of the Tube and watching women and the things they do.  They fall asleep with their bags on their laps.  They immerse themselves in their books with such intensity that they barely look up when switching trains.  They don't pay attention leaving them with a nice target on their back that, according to the killer, just begs for them to be bothered (or worse).

I don't want to give too much away as the unraveling of just what goes on between the killer and the women and how the ads come into play is most inventive and what impressed me the most about this book.  It does make you think about how easy it is to become distracted.  Of course there is more at play in this story.  Zoe's paranoia blossoms and everyone in her life becomes suspect and more than a few people have things to hide, whether related to the crime or not.  Read this and you might think twice about who is sitting next to you on public transport. 

Clare Mackintosh is definitely on my 'must read another by her' list.  This is a psychological thriller that reminds me, albeit with a very modern take, of vintage Ruth Rendell (and in my book there this is high praise indeed).  This was my June prompt choice for 'planes, trains and automobiles'.  I'm already well into Michael Ondaatje's The Cat's Table, so I might even manage a second prompt book this month.

Teaser Tuesday: A Woman's Point of View

I am reading two novels about really interesting women, different lives, different situations and different eras but maybe not entirely different perspectives.  As unlike both of them I am, I still find quite a lot that is similar.  I have to laugh sometimes at Eleanor Oliphant and mentally nod my head in agreement with F.M. Mayor's Mary.  So, I thought today I'd share a few excerpts, which I think may well be very relatable to many of us. 

I am really enjoying Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and am really looking forward to the movie adaptation.  I am curious who will be playing Eleanor and Raymond.  Sometimes I feel like I should not be laughing at the things she says, but I can't help it.  Actual guffaws and in public.  But she is quite wise and introspective and sharp (actually very sharp most of the time) as well.  In the novel she has this crush/fixation on a handsome singer.

"I thought about all those paintings; voluptuous maidens reclining in curvaceous splendor, waif-like ballerinas with huge limpid eyes, drowned beauties in clinging white gowns surrounded by floating blossoms.  I was neither curvaceous nor waif-like.  I was normal-sized and normal-faced (on one side, anyway).  Did men ever look in the mirror, I wondered, and find themselves wanting in deeply fundamental ways?  When they opened a newspaper or watched a film, were they presented with nothing but exceptionally handsome young men, and did this make them feel intimidated, inferior, because they were not as young, not as handsome?  Did they then read newspaper articles ridiculing those same men if they gained weight or wore something unflattering?"

Yes.  Spot on.  I wonder the very same thing myself. 

***

And then there is Mary of F.M. Mayor's The Rector's Daughter.  A motherless daughter with a father who is more interested in his own worries and preoccupations rather than those of a young woman.  Stuck in a situation not of her making or maybe her desire, but she manages to get on well nonetheless, but she asks not nor needs anyone's pity.

"Mary liked the long Dedmayne winter evenings.  In October, as regularly as the leaves fell, she began the winter habit of reading her favorite novels for an hour before dinner, finding in Trollope, Miss Yonge, Miss Austen, and Mrs. Gaskell friends so dear and familiar they they peopled her loneliness."

"Such was Mary's life.  As the years passed on, the invalid's room became more and more her world.  Sometimes she felt the neighborhood, the village, even her father, becoming like shadows.  On the whole she was happy.  She did not question the destiny life brought her.  People spoke pityingly of her, but she did not feel she required pity."

I think things are about to change for Mary, however.  A day of vacation tomorrow.  I will be spending time with both Eleanor and Mary for a nice chunk of time, I hope.

Coronet Among the Weeds, Charlotte Bingham

It wasn't until somewhere in the middle of my reading that I had that 'aha' moment and understood what the title of Charlotte Bingham's 1960's debut book, Coronet Among the Weeds, referred to exactly.  Written when she was a mere nineteen and published when she was twenty imagine a young woman, fresh out of school, a reluctant debutante telling her life story--very tongue in cheek--and you'll get an idea of the flavor of her memoir (memoir or novel based on her life experiences I wonder?).  Conceived as a comedy and encouraged by her parents who were professional writers, Charlotte's narrative is as quirky and of the moment as you can imagine. 

The coronet is, I imagine, the crown she must have worn when presented as a Deb, and the weeds?  I had never heard the word in this context, but think 1960s British slang, pair that with a young woman who begins her memoir saying she has yet to find her superman.  Weeds are the young men of her set.  I don't know--dudes, maybe?  But she uses the words 'weeds' consistently throughout the book (as well as a few other choice terms). There are a number of slangy references which gives the storytelling very much a feeling of verisimilitude.  I imagine Charlotte as being quite hip in her way, even as she writes with a note of self-deprecation and the sense she is maybe even a little square-ish.  But as a young woman of the times she knows what's what.

Coronet Among the Weeds is not exactly your typical coming of age memoir.  Much like any teenager she flits from topic to topic but she focuses mostly on her social life--the time she spent in Paris after finishing school, becoming a Beatnik and not exactly feeling quite a success and then trying her hand at being a Deb, which she swore she would never do, and not quit fitting into that milieu either.  Lots of socializing and looking for her superman.  And then trying to find work and her place in the world without really having the right skills for anything really.

London of the Swinging Sixties is the era and I can place her almost firmly there.  Picture one of those semi-faded technicolor films with a hip (or almost since she was painfully pear shaped when she would have preferred to be a model) young woman and the youthful language to match.  If it was a film the heroine would be narrating her story while the scenes played out in front of our eyes with just the right music.  It would all be very chatty and airy and informal as if she was telling you her story, or rather stories.  I was only surprised at times when I'd get a peek at her more conservative side.  She may be of the era but she was also from a 'good' (read that as private schools, successful inquisitive and supportive parents with an illustrious family history) family.  Maybe conservative is not exactly the right word, maybe traditional? 

If there is meant to be any resolution at the end, it does not come.  No superman, at least not yet, but a plucky and optimistic young woman with the world at her feet and a massively successful and enviable first book under her belt complete with positive press reviews.  Not too shabby for someone barely out of her teens.  Charlotte Bingham goes on to write a further two memoirs (the last only recently published) as well as quite a few novels.  If you don't know her books, you might well know her as one of the screenwriters for some of the early episodes of hugely successful Upstairs, Downstairs TV series. 

Eventually I will pick up her other memoirs (it is the recently published MI5 and Me: A Coronet Among the Spooks that first pointed me in the direction of her earlier books), but I think these are books (at least the first two) are best spread out rather than back to back.  I think Coronet Among the Weeds came around at just the right time and reflected the sensibilities of the moment.  It caught the right wave and she literally sailed it to high success as it prompted media tours and even a TV series, which I am most curious about now.  But the world is a different place now.  I think I need a little palate cleanser, a change of pace, before dipping back into the world of Debs, weeds, and beatniks. 

The Room on Rue Amélie, Kristin Harmel

When I was younger I went through a long phase of reading books about and set during WWII.  Maybe it is easier to read books that can be filled with so much tragedy and heartache when you are young and inexperienced and with your feet just at the threshold to life and the larger world.  I have since become somewhat reluctant to pick up historical fiction that I know is set in Europe during WWII, particularly if it will involve the characters having to go into hiding or being sent to Concentration camps.  I think I have experienced too many hard things in life as an adult.  I find myself always waiting for the shoe to drop tense with worry.  I guess I become too involved with the characters in books.  Sometimes I will flip to the back of the book looking for some reference to a loved character hoping to see their name at the end.  Of course that can be tricky since I won't know their situation unless I am reading those pages. 

I am always reassured, however, to discover that a story has been inspired by actual people or events.  And that is the case with Kristin Harmel's The Room on Rue Amélie.  The novel is set in Occupied France and concerns an American woman who marries a Frenchman on the cusp of WWII and finds herself helping Allied pilots who have been shot down over France escape back home.  Perfect setting for the 'shoe to drop' and I won't say that it does not on occasion, but I still found it to be an enjoyable, if occasionally tense, read but still story filled with hope.

Ruby Henderson meets a dashing Frenchman in America and falls for him.  They marry and move to Paris, which for Ruby is a dream come true.  Unfortunately those first throes of love and passion are dampened when the Nazis arrive and the Occupation begins.  Marcel becomes preoccupied and dismissive of Ruby's American sentiments.  Nothing she does or says seems to be right and she feels increasingly isolated and useless as the war intensifies.  She watches as her neighbors, a Jewish couple with a teenage daughter struggle with the many restrictions the Germans put in place.  Purely by accident she becomes involved with the French Resistance smuggling Allied pilots out of France.  And finally Ruby feels her chance to help the war effort has arrived, but it will not be without danger.

The story is set entirely during the fiercest years of the war, though those years are bookended by chapters set in 2002.  At the start you aren't sure who is talking though there are hints if you've read the book jacket blurb.  It's a perfect summer/vacation read, though maybe a little more serious and tension filled as you would expect from a war story.  Apparently when Harmel was researching a previous book she came across the story of an American woman who found herself in just such a situation.  The woman lived out her life in Florida and had published a diary of her wartime experiences.  Along with other books she drew on the Journal of Hélène Berr (which I know I have a copy of somewhere on my shelves).  I almost hate to find myself being drawn into books about WWII that will surely be difficult and sad reading, but you know how one book so often leads to another. 

I'm not sure I would have picked up The Room on Rue Amélie had it not been the book chosen for the B&N book club that recently formed, but I am happy I had the chance to read it.  She's a good storyteller and I was glad she did not rely on too predictable tropes to tell the story.  The next 'big' B&N read is going to be Anne Tyler's forthcoming Clock Dance which will be discussed August 8.