Carole Reviews: Dominion - Cj Sansom

Author: CJ Sansom

Title: Dominion

Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Adventure, Fantasy

Pages: ebook

First Published: January 1st, 2012

Where I Got It: Given to me by the author/publisher for my honest and unbiased opinion

"1952. Twelve years have passed since Churchill lost to the appeasers and Britain surrendered to Nazi Germany. The global economy strains against the weight of the long German war against Russia still raging in the east. The British people find themselves under increasingly authoritarian rule--the press, radio, and television tightly controlled, the British Jews facing ever greater constraints. 

But Churchill's Resistance soldiers on. As defiance grows, whispers circulate of a secret that could forever alter the balance of the global struggle. The keeper of that secret? Scientist Frank Muncaster, who languishes in a Birmingham mental hospital.

Civil Servant David Fitzgerald, a spy for the Resistance and University friend of Frank's, is given the mission to rescue Frank and get him out of the country. Hard on his heels is Gestapo agent Gunther Hoth, a brilliant, implacable hunter of men, who soon has Frank and David's innocent wife, Sarah, directly in his sights."

Like earlier stated, I was given this book to read and review for the author/publisher with a promise of my honest and unbiased opinion.

Goodness, I do simply love WHAT-IF books. They always stir my imagination. This WHAT-IF book revolves around the idea that if Hitler had beat the British before the US could even get involved. If Hitler did win then he would have accomplished part 1 of his huge dream: conquering Europe. Part 2 would be conquering the entire continent. However, Russia (even in this world) was still a pain in the neck and didn't bow down to Germany. Not an easy prize to win. I doubt they ever will be, too big.

Anyways....this certainly was an adventure. It truly made one appreciate the ending of Hitler and his Nazis. What a horrid world. It was a lot like 1984's world, but not as extreme. It seemed more of a possible world. Germany slowly was converting England into it's world. They made seem (through peace) that they would remain their own state. HAHAHA! Any dim-wit could see that that was not the case. THEN comes in David who at first was blind, but then he was able to see the truth and joined the resistance as a spy. Sometimes that is the safest route to go, but dammit don't get discovered! 

This did have a few POV switches. It mainly stayed with David, Sarah, Frank, and Gunther. Sometimes I would find myself confused, but generally the POV switch wasn't too subtle. It generally switched at the beginning of a new chapter. 

I hated Gunther's POV. Sarah's at first was boring and I skimmed. However, near the middle and end, I actually begin to like her's more. It's not her fault she really wasn't part of the action until then. Poor girl being left in the dark like 80% of the book. Tsk on David for keeping secrets, but one can understand.

This certainly was a long book. I liked the book, but sometimes it did seem to drag. Some parts were boringly necessary. When you change history in a book, one must give detail and a new history lesson. I read it, but I'll admit I skimmed a little bit. 

In the end, this was good. This was interesting and it makes one think and be grateful that the English did not lose and held out until the Americans came to tip the scale in the Allies favor. Even though I skimmed a couple times, I was still enthralled with the story. Not only the WHAT-IFs story, but the people's story. Sigh. Poor Frankie. 

I shall recommend this to those that love a twist to historical facts and for those that love WHAT-IF books. Also fun. I should read more of these...well...out of five stars I shall stamp this with 4 stars. More like 3.8, but I don't do decimals, so 4 it is. ^.^

Favorite Character(s): David (even though he...well...disappointed me), Frank, Ben (GO SCOTS!), good ol' Churchill, and Sarah (felt bad for her)

Not-so Favorite Character(s): Gunther (not because he was the baddie and a Nazi, but he bored me and made me mad. Meh)

Mishel Reviews: Prayers for the Stolen - Jennifer Clement

Series or Stand Alone: Stand Alone

Release Date:  February 2014 

Publisher: Hogarth

Pages:  224

Author Site:  http://www.jennifer-clement.com/

My Rating: 3.5/5 

Source: Received for review from NetGalley

Cover: It’s eye-catching and I like it better than the UK edition.

A haunting story of love and survival that introduces an unforgettable literary heroine

Ladydi Garcia Martínez is fierce, funny and smart. She was born into a world where being a girl is a dangerous thing. In the mountains of Guerrero, Mexico, women must fend for themselves, as their men have left to seek opportunities elsewhere. Here in the shadow of the drug war, bodies turn up on the outskirts of the village to be taken back to the earth by scorpions and snakes. School is held sporadically, when a volunteer can be coerced away from the big city for a semester. In Guerrero the drug lords are kings, and mothers disguise their daughters as sons, or when that fails they “make them ugly” – cropping their hair, blackening their teeth- anything to protect them from the rapacious grasp of the cartels. And when the black SUVs roll through town, Ladydi and her friends burrow into holes in their backyards like animals, tucked safely out of sight.

While her mother waits in vain for her husband’s return, Ladydi and her friends dream of a future that holds more promise than mere survival, finding humor, solidarity and fun in the face of so much tragedy. When Ladydi is offered work as a nanny for a wealthy family in Acapulco, she seizes the chance, and finds her first taste of love with a young caretaker there. But when a local murder tied to the cartel implicates a friend, Ladydi’s future takes a dark turn. Despite the odds against her, this spirited heroine’s resilience and resolve bring hope to otherwise heartbreaking conditions.

An illuminating and affecting portrait of women in rural Mexico, and a stunning exploration of the hidden consequences of an unjust war, PRAYERS FOR THE STOLEN is an unforgettable story of friendship, family, and determination.

Review:

This one was a different kind of reading experience for me. Ladydi’s story is exceptional in many ways: from the rural setting of Mexico to the almost tangible emotions to some truly unforgettable characters. But I was disappointed when Ladydi became more of a narrator than anything else. I couldn’t connect with her even though I tried. Every time I felt I got some sort of inkling of a personality it disappeared and I felt at a loss. She had many great traits but I forgot she was the main character at times. I was just really surprised at how much of a backseat she took to her own life story. Other characters, even minor ones, really stood out from the pages at time. Her mother is one that immediately comes to mind. Strong-willed and resilient in her own right, Ladydi’s mother can be described as a little mad as well. She really drove the story in the beginning for me. Even so I plan on reading more from Jennifer Clement. I like her unique style of writing and am very curious to see it shine through with other stories and characters. I think once I get used to her writing voice I’ll come to appreciate the way she does things. 

I do like how Clement shined light on some of the issues of the hardships and tragedies the people, especially the women, of Mexico face daily. From the politically involved and horrific drug wars to the tragic world of human trafficking I think Prayers for the Stolen can be used as an introductory awareness piece of work for those that aren’t as familiar with these things, like me. A lot of the time Clement let the reader fill in the blanks with their own imagination rather than blatantly shove violent or graphic details into her work. From the very first words of the book the reader knows Ladydi’s daily life is one of struggling survival. Yes, she lives in a poor rural part of Mexico but it’s more the danger of being stolen or killed that she must really survive. From her childhood to her teenage years, Ladydi must always remember to be a female is dangerous, to be beautiful or pretty is to invite the drug lords to the door of your home. 

I had trouble with the gaps within the plot and even the actual delivery of the story. I mentioned earlier that this was a unique reading experience for me and I could very well come to really like it once I become more familiar with Clement’s writing. However, as a first time reader of hers I just wasn’t won over. The lack of quotation marks took some getting used to and the indecisive pacing made it difficult to want to continue at times. Some things within the plot didn’t make sense to me as Ladydi got older and moved away from her home. Other things felt a little too wishy-washy and the story lost its vivid story-telling halfway through the book. The portrayal of Ladydi’s home and childhood stood out immensely with poetic descriptions and metaphors in the beginning. And then things kind of sizzled out and got lost. 

Again, while not a bad book in any light I just found myself a little disappointed. There were such strong moments within the story that makes me want to continue with Clement’s other books. Still Prayers for the Stolen is very insightful and has parts within that I promise will stay with you after you close the book. I’d recommend giving this one a borrow if you want to read it. See for yourself if it works for your reading tastes.

Author Post: Beverley Eikli and giveaway

Today Beverley Eikli is on my blog with a post :)

Welcome!

I woke this morning to the silence of a world blanketed in snow, so familiar in this Norwegian home where I’ve spent such happy times, and so different from the summer noises I’ve grown used to in the children-filled street of our Australian country town.

Jetlagged, after jumping on a plane two days ago to cross the globe in the hopes of making it to my dear father-in-law’s side before he died, I lay in bed and thought how life is a series of circles, bringing one back to the same place at different phases of one’s life. I’m sad that my wonderful father-in-law has passed on, and that we were too late to say our good-byes, but at 96 he’d lived a rich and wonderful life.

He produced a daughter and four sons, the youngest of whom I married at Akershus Festning, the Oslo Castle chapel, twenty years ago. The connection forged a new dimension in my life, not only with a warm and wonderful family, but another country and culture. I’d spent my early years in southern Africa before emigrating to Australia. Then in my late twenties I discovered an album that would catapult me into a world of adventure. Catapult me right back where my family history picked up in the early years of last century. Catapult me into the arms of the handsome Norwegian bush pilot who changed the course of my life.

The album was my grandfather’s photographic diary detailing the extraordinary nature of his work as a young district commission in the British Colonial service in Botswana’s Okavango, between 1916 and 1922.

Intrigued, I persuaded my father to join me on holiday to the Okavango then, to my delight, was invited back to spend two months as relief manager for two of Okavango Wilderness Safaris’ luxury safari camps: Mombo and Jedibe Camps.

I took leave from my job as a journalist and for two months had the time of my life in a pristine environment, catering to guests in a 16-bedded camp, surrounded by predators who filled the nights with a music that thrilled me and which I knew I’d miss dreadfully as I prepared to return home to Australia.

That final night, a new group of tourists was due in camp. As was usual, one of the Motswana guides fetched them from the grassy airstrip and ferried them to the lodge in the small motorboat. As I stood on the rickety jetty beneath the waterberry trees, holding aloft a paraffin lantern to the light their way, I had no idea I was greeting my future husband.

Yes, the handsome bush pilot who’d flown the guests to Jedibe swept me off my feet as we spent the next few hours chatting around the campfire. Although I believed I would never see him again, our budding romance was sustained through eight months of hand-written letters. There was no internet in Botswana back then.

When Eivind took leave from his job as Chief Pilot of Ngami Air to fly to Australia with - I soon learned - the express purpose of proposing on the basis of four hours of conversation and eight months of letter-writing, I had absolutely no hesitation in saying yes. To my amusement, he took out a large advertisement in the Okavango Observer with the words: ‘She said YES!’ as so many people had been hanging out to know if he’d had any success across the globe.

So I gave up my newspaper job in Adelaide, South Australia, and joined Eivind in his little thatched cottage in the middle of a mopane forest by a flood plain 12 km out of Maun, in Botswana. Thus began my life as a ‘trailing spouse’, living in 12 cities and countries as we navigated the ups and downs of the world of aviation.

It’s been an exciting life. I’ve worked with my husband for several airborne geophysical survey companies, based in Canada and Australia, Eivind as the pilot and me working the computer equipment as we contoured the terrain at 250ft. It was a great way to see French Guiana, Greenland and Sweden for three-month contracts, and Namibia for a year. We went to the Solomon Islands for two years, and we lived in Japan for one.

And all the time I wrote exciting tales of romance, peppered with action or mystery, about women who lived in an era where they had no legal rights, their personalities dictating the means by which they gained the power needed to direct their lives and to find fulfilment and happiness – against the odds.

Despite my leap of faith and my determination to forge an exciting life, a pilot’s wife is as much at the mercy of the vagaries of world economics, facing uncertainties in the same way that a woman in historical times was dependant on external factors beyond her control for survival.

Two hundred years might separate me from my characters but I can empathise when the tides of fate pick them up and toss them into new and unfamiliar situations. I’ve been in foreign countries with young children, the rug pulled from under our feet as airline companies have folded – twice, actually. And I wondered what country might provide a haven when politics thrust us out of the Pacific. I’ve given birth, while my husband was still in rehabilitation after breaking his back three weeks earlier.

The uncertainties I’ve experienced are laid bare in My latest Choc Lit romance, The Maid of Milan, which has been described as a Regency-set ‘Dynasty’ with its drug addiction, love triangle and manipulation themes, its style - to my delight -compared with Anthony Trollope’s 'The Pallisers' ‘where beneath the waving fans it’s gritty intrigue’.

My wonderful husband was the inspiration for my hero, Tristan, whose worst moment comes near the end of the book when he discovers he’s unwittingly been a party to the three-year-long subtle manipulation of his once-vibrant wife. By this stage he’s already lost her, for though my heroine, Adelaide, had been ground down through years of being shackled to a lie, she still had her pride. And she could not live with a man whose respect she believed she’d lost.

Adversity and pain are like mirrors. They define a person’s true personality.

Right now, I feel I’m back where I was twenty years ago when, dressed in the traditional Norwegian bunad as a new bride, I looked to the future with such hope.

I’ve farewelled a wonderful man who distinguished himself as a resistance fighter during WWII, and my bonds to his son remain as strong as ever.

I believe there’s still a lot of love and adventure to look forward to in my life.

I've had so much of it already, and as long as I can recreate it in so many different forms in my historical romances and dramas, I’ll be happy.

 website: http://www.beverleyeikli.com

And you can buy The Maid of Milan in paperback, ebook and soon audiobook at Amazon US | Amazon UK | iTunes |  Barnes & Noble

Giveaway

1 copy of The Maid of Milan

1. Open to everyone

2. Ends March 15

3. To enter, comment on the post or ask a question :)

Have fun!

The Maid of Milan - Beverley Eikli

Adelaide Leeson wants to prove herself worthy of her husband, a man of noble aspirations who married hernwhen she was at her lowest ebb.

Lord Tristan Leeson is a model of diplomacy and self-control, even curbing the fiery impulses of his youth to preserve the calm relations deemed essential by his mother-in-law to preserve his wife s health.

A visit from his boyhood friend, feted poet Lord James Dewhurst, author of the sensational Maid of Milan, persuades Tristan that leaving the countryside behind for a London season will be in everyone's interests. 

But as Tristan's political career rises, and Adelaide revels in society's adulation, the secrets of the past are uncovered. And there's a high price to pay for a life of deception.

My thoughts:

This is not some fluffy romance book, but then I knew it would not be. No, it's between historical fiction and romance. It brings more drama and doubt.

Adelaide, oh poor Addy. Her mother has her firmly in her grasp. Sure she is married to a sweet and kind man, and yes she is happy and loves him. But her mother keeps her down, tells her not to be passionate and just makes life dull and miserable. She used to be passionate, but that brought tragedy and a broken heart. And now her former lover comes back into her life.

Tristan was such a nice guy, I mean he was really really really nice, and on top of that he had a mother in law who told him his wife needed rest all the time. He kept up with her cos he loved Addy. Oh yes I loved Tristan.

We have a book with a heroine that wants to spread her wings but is held back, by a mother and by a husband who loves her (but listens to her mother). A husband who adores his wife and would love for her to show more passion but is afraid to hurt her. And then of course a meddling mother in law, who is not kind.

Conclusion:

Doubts, life and the will to truly live or not. A romantic tale about finding what you really want.

Cover

ok

Paperback, 356 pages
Expected US publication: March 15th 2014 by Choc Lit , but out already in ebook form
UK pub: March 7th
Romantic historical fiction
for review