'The Night Circus' is a mesmerizing diversion

Reviewed: "THE NIGHT CIRCUS" by Erin Morgenstern (Anchor Books, a division of Random House Inc., 2011, $15)

When a friend gives a book with an enthusiastic recommendation, I take it with a grain of salt. What I like isn't necessarily what you like, and vice versa. So, despite the fact that my friends Nancy and her daughter Mandy have amazing taste in books, I wasn't sold on Erin Morgenstern's national bestseller THE NIGHT CIRCUS when they kindly loaned it to me.

But, now that I'm finished with the book, I can tell you they were absolutely right about it. Morgenstern's debut is amazing. So now I'm highly recommending it to you.

I'm not sure how to describe this story. I don't think I've ever read anything like THE NIGHT CIRCUS, and I certainly haven't been so engrossed in a novel for quite a while. I didn't know what to make of it at first. The scope and the number of characters is quite large. And much is purposefully left a mystery.

The book is about a traveling circus that circulates to major cities worldwide beginning in the late 1800s. It's also about a fight-to-the-death challenge made between a hand-picked and unwitting boy and girl when they are each about 6 years old. And it's about the star-crossed romance between them (that develops when they're a bit older), and how that affects those involved with Le Cirque des Reves.

The story is also about magic and enchantment. The reader is asked to believe that certain people have inherent or learned powers that can grow over time. Powers that can extend to an experience - a circus that is fantastical, and contains acts such as an illusionist who can change the color of her hair or gown in a blink or turn a coat in to a flight-capable raven; a tent in which everything is made of ice; the usual circus/carnival acrobatic and animal acts - but here no one ever falls or gets hurt; a contortionist who can fold herself into a small box and make herself disappear; and a tent that contains only a multitude of small jars that contain the smells and memories of very specific events - a hot day at the beach, the spices of Christmas morning, and also those that evoke sad occasions.

The circus has a definite brand: Everything is black and white and extremely glamorous, as you might expect a night circus to be. Morganstern's descriptive imagery puts you right there in the venue. The performers' costumes are made by a former prima ballerina with an inherent sense of style. There's tons drama and constant change - to be expected by a circus that arrives to each new place during the night without warning and leaves without warning.

The dark, powerful mysterious nature of the circus lends itself to HBO's "Carnivale" or the motion picture "The Prestige." There's obviously more going on here than is first revealed.

I'll say this book is not for everyone. Other reviews show me that readers either love it or hate it. I have seen no middle ground between 1-2 stars and 4-5 on Goodreads. I give it 5 stars.

It took me about 50 pages to get into the book, which seemed overly descriptive at first. I was at times confused about the sheer number of characters. But, once I began to focus on the circus, the atmosphere Morgensern cleverly evoked, and on the "death fighters/lovers" Marco and Celia, I savored every chapter for each new revelation.However, the ending for me wrapped up too quickly and jarringly - after being entranced with the circus for nearly 400 pages I expected more in the end. But I was sad when it was over. This novel is very much worth a read.

Read the first 14 pages of the novel, and witness the book's inventive design, on Morgenstern's website.

Book summary (from the publisher):

ERIN MORGENSTERN

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway: a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them both, this is a game in which only one can be left standing. Despite the high stakes, Celia and Marco soon tumble headfirst into love, setting off a domino effect of dangerous consequences, and leaving the lives of everyone, from the performers to the patrons, hanging in the balance.

About the author (from Morgenstern's website):

I’m a Cancerian with a Leo Moon and Taurus rising and yes, I know what all of that means.

I studied theatre and studio art at Smith College.

I grew up in Marshfield, Massachusetts. Steve Carrell now owns the store where I bought penny candy and blue raspberry Slush Puppies as a child. This both amuses and disturbs me.

I was reading Stephen King at age 12 and J.K. Rowling at age 21. This likely speaks volumes about my literary development.

I currently live in Boston, Massachusetts, though I’m in the market for a new city. We shall see.

I write. Fantastical, fairy tale-esque things with magic and mystery and tea.

I started querying literary agents in June of 2009. After working with interested agents and revising my manuscript (twice) I signed with my agent in May of 2010. Then I spent a summer in the Revisionland Hotel, and in September of 2010, THE NIGHT CIRCUS sold to Doubleday. The sound you are hearing is my head spinning, still.

THE NIGHT CIRCUS was released in September 2011 in hardcover, and it’s now available in paperback as well. You can probably get it wherever books are sold, as it is sometimes difficult to buy books in places that don’t sell them.

My fiction tends to be location-driven. Nocturnal circuses, subterranean libraries, townhouses dressed up as pirate ships. I got tired of living in Alice’s Wonderland and decided to build some of my own.

I write 10-sentence flash fiction pieces inspired by photographs that are posted to the blog every Friday. They are fondly known as flax-golden tales.

I paint, though writing is taking priority at the moment. Mostly acrylic-based mixed-media abstract illustration. Which means painting with acrylic paint and adding anything I can get to stick, and it’d be abstract if it were not so illustrative and illustration were it not so abstract. I paint Wonderland-y things and teacups and pigs with wings.

I spent large amounts of the last few years painting a black & white tarot deck. I finished painting it in early 2010. You can purchase a beautiful limited edition deck of the Major Arcana here. (Well, you could. It’s sold out now, but they might turn up on tarot trading sites.)

The complete deck can be viewed at phantomwise.com. I am in the process of finding a publisher for the full 78-card version. It’s slow going. I promise it will be published eventually. Really. Someday. Today is not that day. 

I read a lot. I drink absurd amounts of red wine and even more absurd amounts of tea.

I collect jewelry made from old keys.

Win it: 'Rittenhouse Square Rebels' by Philly author Lorie Maher

Reviewed: "Rittenhouse Square Rebels," by Lorie Maher (Abbott Press, 2012, $17.99, 240 pp.)

Philadelphia teacher and author Lorie Maher recently published her debut novel, "Rittenhouse Square Rebels," which she calls a "fairytale for adults and young adults alike." Below is a review published by Joe Infantino, an intern with some of The Mercury's sister papers, The Delaware County News Network, on August 29. Click here to see that article on the Delaware county News Network site.

I'm republishing the article here because Maher has graciously provided to me a review copy of her book that I'd like to pass along to a reader.

To win it, email me with your mailing address at mkaras@pottsmerc.com
 
Upper Darby High School graduate
writes her first novel

By Joe Infantino
News Intern

The desires to fit in and to find love are two aspirations not unknown to Lorie Maher, first-time author of “Rittenhouse Square Rebels.”

The novel, which Maher spent nearly four years writing, stars a young and troubled eighth-grade girl, Christina Jackman. Her father, a stereotypical capitalist and local advertising guru raises her with the help of a cruel and impatient housekeeper, whom together, stunt her childhood, so much so, she is repeatedly kicked out of school. Alone in the world and in a quest to find her mother, Jackman learns about falling in love and rebelling against the status quo.

Maher grew up in Drexel Hill and is a graduate of Upper Darby High School. Her mother, who once owned a children’s clothes store in the Pilgrim Garden Shopping Center in Drexel Hill, was Maher’s greatest inspiration as a child. Today, Maher teaches English to seventh and eighth-grade students at Kirkbride Elementary School in Philadelphia.

Over the years, Maher has written short unpublished pieces, shown only to her family, some friends and childhood classmates. Through reading, she grew to love writing and pursued creative fiction writing at the University of Pittsburgh. Maher said she was drawn to fiction because of the freedom to create characters and enthralling stories.

The narrator, loosely based off of Maher as a child, shares a love for animals with Maher’s younger self. Her familiarity with Rittenhouse Square Park in her hometown, Philadelphia, sets the stage for what Maher calls a “funny spoof” of one social class pinned against the other. On one side of the park are the fancy dogs that walk there everyday and on the other side sit the ordinary dogs.

Although characters in the novel were based off of Maher’s former classmates, she spun their specific traits into unique characters, unrecognizable to the untrained eye.

“I doubt it would be that clear because they are fictional,” she said referring to her characters. “I used specific personalities that I have encountered in my life but then I changed things enough so that they would be entirely different people.”

In a race against the clock, the narrator has only her summer vacation to find her mother and to learn what is not taught in school: love and rebellion. One day she spots a curiously intriguing man in the Rittenhouse Square Park. She imagines many scenarios with him, but before she can muster the courage to act, summer ends and it is too late to do anything about it.

“A lot of people look back on things and think ‘why didn’t it happen like this?’ “ Maher said. “In my story, time becomes a dark shadow on Christina Jackman.”

Capitalism is another theme in the novel, but rather than using her writing to take a stance on the issue, Maher simply wanted to remind readers of the omnipresence of greed.

“I wanted to paint an entertaining, vivid portrait of people’s lives in my novel,” Maher said. “Christina Jackman’s uncle and father are ‘off the wall’ money hungry and narcissistic and some might think they’re fools, but I definitely wanted to affect readers’ emotions so that they have their own opinions about these people.”

At the end of each journey is a reward and while the book is newly on the market, Maher hopes to gain a strong readership and ultimately wants critiques so she can improve her writing. Maher recently received a good luck e-mail from Danielle Steel, an author that she followed as a student and someone that she frequently found herself looking up to.

“I feel like my life has change because I have gotten involved with going to these writers events,” Maher said. “It’s been great being able to meet other writers and to learn from them.”

Book summary (from the author):

Christina Jackman was a spoiled, rich girl who lives in the richest part of Philadelphia, Rittenhouse Square. Because of her family, no one likes her at school. In fact, Christina gets into a lot of trouble at school-so much that she has been repeatedly kicked out! Now she's finally about to finish eighth grade.

She lives with her father - a local king of advertising - and a housekeeper, Ingrid Zeimer. Mrs. Zeimer is terrible; cruel, mean, and impatient. Christina's Uncle Harry was no better. She suspects he didn't even like her-which is okay, since she doesn't like him either. Christina is all alone in the world with no one to turn to and no one to love-until one day when she begins to ask questions about her mother.

LORIE MAHER

What happened to her mother? Why did her mother leave her father? Where is her mother now? Christina's father doesn't respond so Christina decides to seek top-secret information herself. With the help of her detective friend, Brian Parks, Christina sets out to find her long-lost mom. Along the way, she learns about falling in love, and risking everything to be a rebel!

Download/purchase the e-book of "Rittenhouse Square Rebels" here. 

About the author:

Maher grew up in Drexel Hill and attended Upper Darby High School. She resides in Philadelphia.

Read this before bed and you'll likely lose sleep

I've read a lot of really amazing debut novels this year. Amor Towles' "Rules of Civility," Roberta Rich's "Midwife of Venice," Paul Elwork's "The Girl Who Would Speak For the Dead," and "The Language of Flowers" by Vanessa Diffenbaugh all come to mind. 

"Before I Go To Sleep," by S.J. Watson (June 2011, HarperCollins, $14.99 paperback, 368 pp.) also falls in that category. The suspense/thriller of a different sort was given to me by my sister, who predicted I would tear through it. I finally picked it up last week and just like Jennifer said (she's always right!), this is a book I didn't want to put down.

The book is told from the viewpoint of Christine Lucas, a 47-year-old British woman who wakes up every day with no memory. She wakes up feeling like she's 20, and then looks at her self in the mirror and sees her body aged beyond the age she thinks she is and has trouble putting it all together (we all do that ... right?)

Christine wakes up every day in bed with a stranger - one we learn is her husband Ben. Ben does his best to fill Christine in on the pertinent details of her life before heading out the door to work each day, leaving her with a list of things she might do (laundry, walk, etc.). Christine spends the rest of the day trying to figure out who she is and how she's become this way.

Ben tells Christine she was hit by a car years ago and the resulting head trauma has permanently - and likely irrevocably - damaged her memory. Christine can conjure no memory of the incident, and, as with all the other facts about herself, she has to take Ben's word for what happened.

Unbeknownst to Ben, Christine is sought out by a physician who claims he's making advances in the realm of memory loss. Dr. Nash advises Christine to start keeping a journal, and to put it in a place where every day she can read it and re-learn the memories of the day before - and possibly discover new memories along the way. 

Christine does start to keep a journal and it DOES help her make strides with her memory. However, those memories don't always come without a price. She remembers giving birth to a son, Adam, only to learn from Ben that Adam has died. She remembers she was a writer, and discovers she published a novel and was working on a second when she had her accident. Christine remembers her best friend from college, Claire, only to learn from Ben that she and Claire had a falling out and that Claire since has left the country, possibly to New Zealand. And, most intriguingly, she starts to remember the details of a brutal attack by a lover - a strangulation and near-drowning. Ben tells her he knows about the lover and has forgiven her. But Christine still has questions.

So, the reader follows Christine through her days, waking up next to Ben. Sometimes she's naked and so is he. Often he tries to make love to her, although she feels she doesn't even know him. The creep factor just keeps rising.

With the help of her journal, Christine learns quite a bit about her past, and can literally see the lies that it seems Ben tells her each day. He will omit the fact that she has a son from the daily update, for instance.

It seems that Ben is the only person Christine can trust, other than her doctor. But then Christine finds Claire and rekindles their friendship. Claire helps Christine to remember many of the details of her life that she's forgotten since her accident. And the creepy feeling the reader has an inkling of starts to get stronger and stronger.

This novel will keep you turning pages into the wee hours of the morning to try to figure out just what's going on in Christine's life. Something doesn't add up. Well, a LOT of things don't add up.

"Before I Go to Sleep" is not what I'd call great literature, but it is a good read.

I'm not going to spoil the thrilling climax of the story, but I will say it answered some questions but left me with a few more.

Once you've read the book and want to compare questions the book left you with, let me know!

Book summary (from the author's website):

Christine wakes up every morning in an unfamiliar bed with an unfamiliar man. She looks in the mirror and sees an unfamiliar, middle-aged face. And every morning, the man she has woken up with must explain that he is Ben, he is her husband, she is 47 years old, and a terrible accident two decades earlier decimated her ability to form new memories.

But it’s the phone call from a Dr. Nash, a neurologist who claims to be working with Christine without her husband’s knowledge, that directs her to her journal, hidden in the back of her closet. For the past few weeks, Christine has been recording her daily activities—tearful mornings with Ben, sessions with Dr. Nash, flashes of scenes from her former life—and rereading past entries, relearning the facts of her life as retold by the husband she is completely dependent upon. As the entries build up, Christine asks many questions. What was life like before the accident? Why did she and Ben never have a child? What has happened to Christine’s best friend? And what exactly was the horrific accident that caused such a profound loss of memory?

Every day, Christine must begin again the reconstruction of her past. And the closer she gets to the truth, the more un-believable it seems.

Click here for a link to download a PDF of the first chapter.

Click here to view the book trailer. Apparently this is the trailer from the Australian version of the book. It's kind of dark.

About the author:

S.J. WATSON

Steve 'S J' Watson was born in the Midlands, lives in London and worked in the National Health Service for a number of years.

In 2009, Watson was accepted into the first Faber Academy Writing a Novel Course: "Before I Go to Sleep" was the result, a novel that attracted attention from many of the UK's major publishers. Rights have already been sold in 30 languages and a film version is due to beginning shooting later this year.

Read a Q&A with Watson about "Before I Go To Sleep" here.

Visit the author's website here.

Great beach read: 'The Book of Summers' by Emylia Hall

U.S. bookcover

There are times when I judge a book by its cover.

I appreciate a cover design that makes me want to read what's inside and is something I flip back to and study now and again as a read along. The (U.S.) cover of "The Book of Summers" by Emylia Hall (Harlequin MIRA, June 2012, $15.95) in my opinion, does not. The flirty, blossom-bedecked cover with its title in gilded flowery font suggests the story inside will be light and girly.

Light and girly this debut novel isn't.

It took me about the first two chapters (65 pages) to commit to finishing the book. (If I'm not enjoying a book after about that much, I'll drop it.) But I'm glad I stayed the course.

Because of a bit of mystery in the first bit, I jumped to the wrong conclusion that "The Book of Summers" might be about to turn into some kind of fairy story. Not that there's anything wrong with writing about the magical world of fairies - it's just I didn't want to waste precious hours reading about them.

But I had a hunch the book, which is Hall's debut, might be a keeper. So I took "The Book of Summers" on vacation with me, incidentally to the lake house where I spent the summers of my youth - kind of the perfect spot to read this book about a woman recalling her girlhood summers. I also packed three other novels and numerous magazines - because I am ambitious and foolish enough to weigh down my luggage with superfluous reading material. However, this 348-page novel is the only one I finished during my week at the lake. I read dreadfully slow, especially when surrounded by my four gorgeous nieces and cutie godson.

In the novel, Beth Lowe, 30, is a clearly unhappy young professional Brit living in London who gets a surprise visit from her dad. He bears a package from Hungary, where Beth spent her summers as a child. But for reasons that aren't immediately clear to the reader, not only does Beth not open the package right away, she kicks her dad out in a huff and embarks on a pensive pouty trip to the local park.

There, after much trepidation, she opens the parcel to reveal a scrapbook of sorts from Marika, the woman who ended up splitting from Beth's dad when Beth was just a kid. There's also a letter from Marika's longtime boyfriend, Zoltan, informing the now-adult Beth that Marika has died.

The artfully and thoughtfully put together scrapbook, which bears the name "The Book of Summers," (hence the book title, which I still don't love) depicts the seven summers Beth - or Erszebet as she's called in Hungarian - spent with Marika.

Hall employs a device of jumping from present-day England to Beth's long-ago summer trips to Hungary, when she was ages 9 to 16. Beth's England is such a drab and dreary place, in contrast to the blazing bright jaunts to Hungary.

Through the book, Beth is drawn to re-live the sun-drenched summer trips, which she has tried to suppress in her memory. The reader experiences them in chronological order, starting with Beth - or Erzsi as she was then known - at age 9.

UK bookcover

Hall's descriptions of Hungary and the hilly landscape surrounding Villa Serena, the home where Marika and Zoltan live, literally paint the picture (literally and figuratively - Zoltan is an artist) of the fairytale like land for the reader. The descriptive imagery likely comes from the author's own seemingly magical trips
 to the colorful country in her youth. Hall is a daughter of an English artist and a Hungarian quiltmaker. She spent many of her childhood summers in Hungary.

"It was a visit characterized by small details, the minutiae of time well spent, as though after the days at the pool and in the studio my senses had been heightened to all the little things. The sparkly silver color of my toenails after Marika had painted them, and my hair - braided by her when it was wet from the bath, so that later when I shook it out under the sun, I wore a halo of tight curls. What else? A hot-dog sausage, its split skin glistening, with a perfect blob of muddy mustard beside it, eaten off a paper plate under the shade of a plane tree." Hall writes, from 10-year-old Erzsi's point of view, one summer in Hungary.

The senses are a big part of Hall's writing, and she sets the stage well in this coming-of-age novel. We know from the start that Beth/Erzsi is angry and has experienced a life-changing disappointment. Hall aptly writes the teen angst we all had and the emotional responses to we made/make in response to seemingly insignificant happenings - such as when she scolds Marika for taking on a tutoring student during Erzsi's short visit. It's clear that Erszi is insanely jealous of the student, a girl who is good friends with Erzsi's Hungarian beau, Tamas. Then teenaged Erzsi lashes out at Marika in a childish and manipulative way that resonated with me - reminiscent of how I might have sparred with my own dear mother back in the day. I thought Hall painted a telling picture of the mother-daughter relationship, and aptly described the regret the child felt almost immediately. 

We discover why Erszi's heart was broken near the end. But I'm not going to spoil it for you. "The Book of Summers" is worth a read, even/especially if you're a book title/cover snob like me. I thought it dragged a bit at the start, but it hooked me eventually. I wanted to now what happened to the adult Beth, and why her relationships with her father and everyone around her suffered. Hall's writing is lovely and the story poignant. Great for a summer holiday, in Hungary if you can swing it.

Book summary (from the author's website):

Beth Lowe has been sent a parcel.

Inside is a letter informing her that her long-estranged mother has died, and a scrapbook Beth has never seen before. Entitled The Book of Summers, it’s stuffed with photographs and mementos compiled by her mother to record the seven glorious childhood summers Beth spent in rural Hungary.

It was a time when she trod the tightrope between separated parents and two very different countries; her bewitching but imperfect Hungarian mother and her gentle, reticent English father; the dazzling house of a Hungarian artist and an empty-feeling cottage in deepest Devon. And it was a time that came to the most brutal of ends the year Beth turned sixteen.

Since then, Beth hasn’t allowed herself to think about those years of her childhood. But the arrival of The Book of Summers brings the past tumbling back into the present; as vivid, painful and vital as ever.

Watch the book trailer here.

About the author (from the author's website):

EMYLIA HALL

Emylia Hall was born in 1978 and grew up in the Devon countryside, the daughter of an English artist and a Hungarian quilt-maker. After studying at York University and in Lausanne, Switzerland, Emylia spent five years working in a London ad agency, before moving to the French Alps. It was there that she began to write. Hall now lives in Bristol with her husband, also an author. Chosen by ELLE as one of the most anticipated debut novelists for 2012, Emylia was also one of three writers to appear in the Red Pages Hot 100. THE BOOK OF SUMMERS is her first novel, and is inspired by evocative memories of childhood holidays spent in rural Hungary. It’s published by Headline in the UK (where it’s a Richard and Judy Summer Book Club pick), MIRA in the US & Canada, and will be translated into eight languages. She is currently at work on her second novel which is due for publication in 2013. 

Click here to see Hall's blog.

'Midwife of Venice' delivers a thriller & a love story

"The Midwife of Venice" by Roberta Rich, Gallery Books (Simon & Schuster), February 2012, 352 pp.

It's obvious Roberta Rich did her research when writing "The Midwife of Venice," her debut novel. Set in the Jewish ghetto of Venice as well as on the island of Malta in the late 1500s, the story is rich in details and history as it follows Jewish midwife Hannah and her beloved husband Isaac Levi, a merchant.

The book was originally published on Valentine's Day, and while it is certainly a love story on one level I would say it's more of a testament to the strength of and rights of women, the gifts of midwives, the sanctity of the Jewish religion, and early gynecological experimentation.Yes, there's a lot going on here.

After delivering many babies, Hannah has invented a contraption she calls "birthing spoons" to assist in difficult deliveries. It seems a lot of babies were gruesomely dismembered in attempts to save the mothers when they were breach or difficult births back in the times of this novel. But Hannah's contraption - similar to forceps, I would guess, but usually seen as witchcraft by an outsider - has helped her to improve her birthing success rate greatly.

Hannah's husband Isaac, whom she deeply loves, has encountered misfortune on a trip to sell some wares. He ends up being sold into slavery on the bleak island of Malta but his quick-thinking and ability to read and write keep him from certain death as a galley slave. He tries everything he can think of to find passage on a ship back to his beloved Hannah.

Meanwhile, Hannah is summoned in the middle of the night to assist in the birth of a nobleman's child. This nobleman is a Christian, and at the time, Christians and Jews were great foes. Hannah's decision to defy her own Rabbi to attend to the birth of a Christian child is considered a great offense. But she does so only because the job will pay enough for her to rescue Isaac.

Rich does a good job of creating suspense, as each chapter of the novel jumps from Hannah to Isaac and each ends with a veritable cliffhanger. I won't give away the ending, but suffice to say there's a lot of suspense to this story. The characters, from Hannah and Isaac to Hannah's sister, Assunta - the nun who helps Issac, and the Count who seeks Hannah's help in the very challenging birth of his child are well developed. But for me, something in the telling was unorganic. I had problems with the flow of the story. It wasn't coming together for me as best or as compellingly as it should.

I was interested enough to finish the novel, and I don't regret reading it. I just didn't love it.

Special thanks to Gallery Books for providing a review copy, which has been claimed by my sister-in-law Sherri who is quite a voracious reader!

Book description from the publisher:

Hannah Levi is renowned throughout Venice for her gift at coaxing reluctant babies from their mothers — a gift aided by the secret “birthing spoons” she designed. But when a count implores her to attend to his wife, who has been laboring for days to give birth to their firstborn son, Hannah is torn. A Papal edict forbids Jews from rendering medical treatment to Christians, but the payment he offers is enough to ransom her beloved husband, Isaac, who has been captured at sea. Can Hannah refuse her duty to a suffering woman? Hannah’s choice entangles her in a treacherous family rivalry that endangers the baby and threatens her voyage to Malta, where Isaac, believing her dead in the plague, is preparing to buy his passage to a new life. Not since The Red Tent or People of the Book has a novel transported readers so intimately into the complex lives of women centuries ago or so richly into a story of intrigue that transcends the boundaries of history. 

ROBERTA RICH

About the author:

Roberta Rich divides her time between Vancouver, British Columbia and Colima, Mexico

Philly-area author's debut transports you to the melancholy, moneyed Main Line of a century past

I received a review copy of Paul Elwork's debut novel, "The Girl Who Would Speak For the Dead," (Berkley, March 2012, $15, 324 pp.) just in time to tuck it in my suitcase and take it along on a recent vacation.

The sense of foreboding in the novel cast a slight chill on the 84-degree days of my retreat.

At first I thought it was going to be a ghost story, but I changed my tune after delving in. This book is more of a mystery that spans the generations who reside in a grand family mansion on the banks of the Delaware River around the first World War.

Throughout there's an atmosphere of  things left unsaid at a time when people were slow to reveal their true feelings and passions.

Elwork, who writes from somewhere closeby in the Philly 'burbs, modeled Ravenwood, the riverfront mansion setting for the novel, on Philadelphia's Glen Foerd estate, now part of the Fairmount Park system.

Once the site of grand parties in happier times, Ravenwood has become a solitary refuge for wealthy and reclusive young widow Naomi Stewart, her 13-year-old twins, and the help.

Twins Emily and Michael, bored during their 13th summer - the summer of 1925- come up with a scheme to trick the other kids in the neighborhood into thinking they can communicate with ghosts. That Emily can, that is. Michael acts more like her manager.

Emily possesses a "talent" that allows her to (and this can't be good for a young girl's bones) make an eerie reverberating sound with her ankle without appearing to move a muscle. The sound is so unusual that, once Emily discovers she can produce it, she uses it to trick her brother Michael into thinking he's being visited by something otherworldly - perhaps a ghost that makes noises that sound like knocks.

Michael is so impressed he puts together a seance of sorts with their neighborhood friends. The meeting place is a small cottage on the estate that's fairly close to the river. Surrounded by her friends in the small outbuilding known as the Tea House, Emily calls forth the spirit of her great-aunt, Regina, who died an accidental death at a young age decades before at the riverside. Regina "answers" questions via one knock or two, and the children are duly impressed.

Word of Emily's "Spirit Knocking" ability spreads from the twins' friends to the friends' parents, though somehow Naomi never catches wind of it. At this time in history, with so many loved ones dead in World War II, there's no shortage of people who are missing someone, no dearth of unfinished business. That goes, too, for Naomi and her late husband, Donald.

The reader catches glimpses of Naomi and Donald at earlier dates, and of Donald's relatives who built Ravenwood - a place that contains many secrets. I won't give away the story, especially since you can win it for yourself (see below). Suffice to say Emily and Michael find themselves facing real consequences of their fake mischief.

My poor cell-phone photography of Elwork's book as it visited
with me one of  Florida's barrier islands.
I could've at least gotten the ocean in the photo!

What I found most intriguing about "The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead" was that Elwork sustained a dark and melancholy tone throughout.

While I liked the book, there were times when I felt the pacing lagged, and in parts read like it was geared toward a much-younger audience.

That said, Elwork's writing style in this debut is both unique and charming. His novel is worth a read, preferably somewhere your toes can be touching sand - or the soft lapping of the Delaware River - while you do.

To learn more ... 

Check out Elwork's website for more book- and author-related information.

Click here to read Terrible Minds blogger Chuck Wendig's entertaining March interview with Paul Elwork. It's here that I read that Elwork is a fellow fan of the hoppy deliciousness of IPAs.

About the author (from his website):

PAUL ELWORK

Paul Elwork has a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Temple University and a master’s degree in English from Arcadia University. His fiction has appeared in various literary journals, including SmokeLong Quarterly, Philadelphia Stories, Short Story America, Word Riot, and Johnny America. He lives on the outskirts of Philadelphia.

"The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead," his first novel, was released in hardcover by Amy Einhorn Books in March 2011. The paperback edition was released by Berkley Books in  March 2012.

Want to win it? 

If you would like to "win" my slightly used paperback review copy of the book, simply comment on this post with your email address. I'll contact you to find out where to mail the book if you are selected.

Book says my favorite flower means ... Anger?

Vanessa Diffenbaugh's debut novel "The Language of Flowers" (Ballantine Books, 2011, $25, 320 pp.) drew me in with a compelling plot, taught me a bit about the meanings of my favorite bouquets, and kept up a good bit of mystery, suspense and emotional trauma throughout.

The story follows Victoria Jones, a stubborn and oft-misunderstood product of the foster-care system. She's been through more than 30 foster homes when we meet her on her 18th birthday. That day she is set free into the world to try to fashion a life from the broken pieces of her childhood.

We also meet the young, angry Victoria, and learn why she prefers to be emotionally and even physically unattached from others.

I found myself rooting for Victoria to find a normal, happy life, and many times I was disappointed. She makes sometimes outrageous decisions that may not make sense to a reader who's never been unloved, homeless or without food.

The one thing that seems to make sense in Victoria's life are flowers. She learned in one of her foster homes the meanings of most plants and flowers. Such as my favorite flower, the sickly sweet oversized Peony, which somehow translates to anger. And my favorite garden herb, Basil, which means - and I still don't get how something so good-smelling and tasty could translate to this - hate.

But I am heartened to know that the blossoms on the soon-to-be gracefully blooming Dogwood trees in my yard mean love undiminished by diversity (that has a nice ring to it). And my go-to inexpensive yet elegant table-topping favorite, Alstromeria, means devotion.

View Victoria's flower dictionary here.

Victoria finds solace in flowers, and her knowledge of them lands her a job with a florist who tolerates the feisty girl's moods and whims because of her immense talents. Victoria becomes known for her ability to create bouquets with almost magical powers. Wedding flowers that can almost guarantee a happy home, apology flowers, blossoms that incite passion. Through her work she finds the first real romantic relationship of her life with a flower-seller, and together they research, explore and test the meanings of a multitude of blooms. The historically withdrawn loner Victoria herself seems to be blooming.

Until the inevitable happens and her world is torn upside down.

"Fate delights to thwart us thus. Passion will choose his own time to rush upon the scene, and lingers sluggishly behind, when an appropriate adjustment of events would seem to summon his appearance," ~ a line from Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Rappacini's Daughter" that aptly applies.

I'm not going to spoil the book for you, but suffice to say that things twist and turn and don't go the way you might expect or want for Victoria, who throughout the tale seems to badly need a break.

This novel is worth reading. I liked it but didn't love it (Those are, incidentally, the very same words uttered by Mercury Editor Nancy March when describing the book, which she kindly loaned to me). However, the story certainly did have staying power. And I was surprised to find yet another debut novel so well-done.

It seems the author had a very personal stake in the story. As I write this I find that Diffenbaugh has been a foster mother and has founded an advocacy group (see below) to support teens making the transition from foster care to lives of their own.

Visit the book website here.

VANESSA DIFFENBAUGH

About the author:

Vanessa Diffenbaugh was born in San Francisco and raised in Chico, Calif. After studying creative writing and education at Stanford, she went on to teach art and writing to youth in low-income communities. She and her husband, PK, have three children: Tre’von, 18 ; Chela, 4; and Miles, 3. Tre’von, a former foster child, is attending New York University on a Gates Millennium Scholarship.

Diffenbaugh is the founder of the Camellia Network. The mission of the Camellia Network is to create a nationwide movement to support youth transitioning from foster care. Per "The Language of Flowers," Camellia means My Destiny is in Your Hands. "The network’s name emphasizes the belief in the interconnectedness of humanity: each gift a young person receives will be accompanied by a camellia, a reminder that the destiny of our nation lies in the hands of our youngest citizens," states the book website. For more information about the Camellia Network, visit www.camellianetwork.org

Diffenbaugh and her family reside in Cambridge, Mass.