The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson

In The Demon of Unrest, Erik Larson looks at the months leading up to the attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, starting with the gallantry of Southern life (for the ruling class only) and the election of Lincoln, which agitated slave owners who assumed he would challenge their way of life and their prosperity.  As revealed in this narrative, the months leading to the attack on Sumter seem like a train careening off the tracks but with many moments when it seems someone should have been able to stop it.

Six Degrees of Separation - From The Proud Way to Little Women

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where one ends up.   This month’s starting point is Rodham: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld, in which the author reimagines Hillary’s life if she hadn’t married Bill.  My sisters liked her book Prep but I have no interest in reading this book which sounds so invasive. Leave Hillary alone!

However, it somehow reminded me of my first book, The Proud Way by Shirley Seifert (1948), a historical novel about Varina Davis, the First Lady of the Confederacy, married to Jefferson Davis.  Varina came from a slave-owning family in Mississippi but received a better education than most women of her class and, perhaps influenced by Northern relatives, did not approve of slavery.  Her birthplace, The Briers, is now a B&B, if I ever make it to Natchez.  This book belonged to my mother.

Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles, author of News of the World

Title: Simon the Fiddler
Author:  Paulette Jiles

Publication:  William Morrow, hardcover, April 2020

Genre: Historical Fiction

Plot: In March 1865, the long and bitter War between the States is winding down. Until now, twenty-three-year-old Simon Boudlin has evaded military duty thanks to his slight stature, youthful appearance, and utter lack of compunction about bending the truth. But following a barroom brawl in Victoria, Texas, Simon finds himself conscripted, however belatedly, into the Confederate Army. Luckily his talent with a fiddle gets him a comparatively easy position in a regimental band.

England 2018, Day 6

On Wednesday, we headed to a fashionable part of London - Mayfair! My mother wanted to visit the house where composer George Frideric Handel had lived - now a museum housing both German-born Handel and Seattle-born rock star Jimi Hendrix memorabilia!  We have a particular interest in the former because my grandfather was a Handel scholar, author of a book on Handel that is still in print. The museum was small but charming: we enjoyed a young musician playing the harpsichord while singing Bach in German (he said he'd get to Handel if I was patient), and I learned a little about Jimi Hendrix also!  Most of all, it was exciting to think of Handel working on Messiah in this very house (and I was amazed to learn he had completed it in about three weeks), using this very bookcase.

Handel's bookcase

Before leaving Mayfair, I also poked my head into nearby Claridge's Hotel which made me feel like the royalty and celebrities who often stay there. Perhaps one sign of a five star hotel (not to mention L500/night) is that they made me feel welcome even in jeans and sneakers (if it weren't always cold and rainy I might have looked less disheveled). The hostess at the restaurant urged me to bring my mother in for a coffee but there wasn't time.

Interior of St. George's, Hanover Square

My big miscalculation of this trip (at least so far) was looking on my phone at the distance between Brook Street and the Churchill War Rooms and deciding it was close enough to walk. It took us nearly an hour and half to get there and then there was an enormous line! Nicky had warned us the night before to buy tickets online but the website was uncooperative. It turned out that the tickets were sold out and a sympathetic guard said we might get in but it could be one hour or four! We were cold and disgruntled, so walked another 20 minutes before we found a Pret a Manger, where we partook of hot chocolate, tea, and cookies, which restored our good humor. The walk had been interesting, after all, and among other things we had visited St. George's, Hanover Square, the society church that makes appearances in Georgette Heyer's and others' books. We also walked by the shop (showroom?) of Jenny Packham, the British fashion designer patronized by the Duchess of Cambridge. As my guilty pleasure is WhatKateWore.com this delighted me.

Jenny Packham, clothing designer to the stars

I had read about a fabulous exhibit about Charles I, King and Collector at the Royal Academy, so although we hated to walk another meter, we girded our loans and hustled over to Burlington House on Piccadilly. The queue there was almost as bad as the one we had left behind but fortunately they sold us tickets for 3:30 and we only had to wait patiently for 20 minutes or so to enter. The exhibit had brought the treasures of Charles I from all over the world for the first time since, presumably, he was chased out of town by those vile Roundheads. It consisted of paintings, sculpture, miniatures (by Nicholas Hilliard!), tapestries, medallions and more, dazzlingly displayed in many rooms. The most impressive paintings were by Anthony Van Dyck, who came to England and essentially became the court painter, painting many portraits of Charles and his family. Each room was extremely crowded because the exhibit is closing on April 15th and people were trying to catch it. It was worth elbowing our way through to see such exceptional works.

I really wanted the exhibition poster but was not sure I could get it home intact

By 5:15, however, we were not just tired of the crowds but also eager to see the real reason for our trip, my eldest niece, who is studying in London this semester. We had arranged to meet her at Zizzi on the Strand (a chain but the food was wonderful), so we hurried through the rush hour commuters and a kind manager at the restaurant found us a table although we did not have a reservation. It was great to see my niece and hear about her adventures! She is studying theatre and after dinner we went to see a new play, Quiz, which had just opened and was cleverly staged and great fun. 

Church count: one
Miles walked: 5.0

Favorite Reads of 2017

2017 was full of outstanding books! I read about 166 books, of which 18 were audio books and 19 were ebooks (a higher percentage than usual due to more electronic review copies and because I did more reading at the gym using a Kindle). Here is a link to my Goodreads year in review which shows everything I read. All but three books were fiction, but two of those made the favorites list listed by genre below:

Historical Fiction
The Black Madonna and Lords of Misrule – The Black Madonna is the first novel in Stella Riley’s Roundheads and Cavaliers series, and Lords of Misrule is the fourth. I had to go back to reread The Black Madonna after reading Lords of Misrule (not because I had forgotten anything, I just missed the characters). Set in the 17th century during the English Civil War, the primary male character is a true anti-hero, a sharp-tongued goldsmith trying to redeem his family’s honor while dodging the partisans on both sides of the English Civil War, most of whom look down on him but seek to borrow money from him. He comes into contact with red-headed Kate Maxwell and her warmhearted family, but has no time for friendship or romance or anything that will distract him from vengeance. You’ll see how that works out! Lords of Misrule is the long awaited story of Kate’s brother Eden but please don’t read out of order!  Fans of Stella Riley will be delighted her books are all in print.

The Mapmaker's Children (Book Review and Giveaway)

Title: The Mapmaker’s Children
Author: Sarah McCoy
Publication: Crown Publishers, hardcover, May 2015
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: 19th century and 21st century United States
Purchase Links: Amazon | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble

 

Plot: When Sarah Brown, daughter of abolitionist John Brown, realizes that her artistic talents may be able to help save the lives of slaves fleeing north, she becomes one of the Underground Railroad’s leading mapmakers, taking her cues from the slave code quilts and hiding her maps within her paintings. She boldly embraces this calling after being told the shocking news that she can’t bear children, but as the country steers toward bloody civil war, Sarah faces difficult sacrifices that could put all she loves in peril.

Eden, a modern woman desperate to conceive a child with her husband, moves to an old house in the suburbs and discovers a porcelain head hidden in the root cellar—the remains of an Underground Railroad doll with an extraordinary past of secret messages, danger and deliverance.

Ingeniously plotted to a riveting end, Sarah and Eden’s woven lives connect the past to the present, forcing each of them to define courage, family, love, and legacy in a new way.

Audience: Fans of historical fiction; those interested in the Civil War and/or strong heroines

What I liked: The Mapmaker’s Children was one of my favorite books of 2015 and should be included on your summer reading or future book group list. I was fascinated by the description when I first read about it, months before it came out, and I immediately asked if I could participate on the blog tour. I particularly enjoy books that move from the present to the past, especially when written by a skillful author such as this one, and which feature a strong heroine. McCoy moves effortlessly from prevent day West Virginia where Eden, a troubled woman, is trying to make a new start in a quirky and appealing community, to one of the most troubled times imaginable, and a heroine who moves from New York to West Virginia to Massachusetts to California in a time where most women stayed within a few miles of where they were born. Her description of John Brown’s surviving family and how they coped with the notoriety that was his legacy to them kept me reading late into the night. I loved the character of his daughter, Sarah – her ingenuity and courage and dedication to her father’s dream. I almost resented whenever we left her story for Eden’s modern-day problems and unreasonable quarrels. Those interested in the Underground Railroad will also be interested in Sarah’s clever way of disguising maps to freedom.

Author Information: I was delighted to see that Sarah McCoy was going to be in Massachusetts on her tour for The Mapmaker’s Children and caught up with her at the Brookline Booksmith in May when she appeared with Jenna Blum (a writer whose work I look forward to exploring). It was so much fun to hear how her upbringing in the South has informed her love of history and her ability to convincingly evoke a Civil War setting and heroine. In common with other readers, I loved the characters of the Hill family, especially Freddy Hill, who is a perfect combination of handsome hero and loyal friend. As little is actually known about Sarah Brown, McCoy walks a careful line between factual information (such as her artistic talent and the time spent being educated with the Alcotts in Concord) and the fictional information necessary to craft a novel. I yearned for a happy ending that would not have been supported by what is known about Sarah.  For more information on author Sarah, please visit her website.

Because I am usually more interested in the English Civil War than the American Civil War, I did not know much about John Brown (except the doleful song) and surprised Sarah by asking how he became so associated with the Harper’s Ferry plot when he was from New York (I am still astonished that he would bring his family down from NY for the proposed raid, putting them in grave danger, but I suppose it is not so different from those who picnicked while watching the battle at Bull Run). Hearing about her research was fascinating. In turn, she was pleased to hear that I and others in the audience immediately started reading more about John Brown after we finished reading, and she told us that is a great compliment to the author to know she has inspired that much interest in the period.

Giveaway: Thanks to the generosity of TLC Book Tours and the publisher, I have a copy to give away.  US and Canada only, please.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Source: I received this book from TLC Book Tours but all thoughts and opinions are my own.  You can visit other stops on the tour by clicking here.  I bought an earlier book, The Baker's Daughter, at the event and look forward to reporting on that soon.

So Great a Love (Book Review)

Title:  So Great a Love
Author: Gladys Malvern

Publication Information: Macrae Smith Co., 1962, Beebliome Books 2013 (ebook)

Genre: YA Historical Fiction

Setting:  17th Century England

Plot:  It is 1641 and lovely Lady Henrietta Wade, known as Hal, is lady in waiting to Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I of England (the cover actually comes from a portrait of the Queen). 

The Winter Siege (Book Review)

Title: The Winter Siege: A Daniel Cheswis Mystery
Author: D. W. Bradbridge

Publication Information: Electric Reads, 2013, trade paperback

Genre: Historical Fiction     
Setting:  17th Century England 

 Plot:  “...but pray tell me, are you for the King or for Parliament?”

1643. The armies of King Charles I and Parliament clash in the streets and fields of England, threatening to tear the country apart, as winter closes in around the parliamentary stronghold of Nantwich. The royalists have pillaged the town before, and now, they are returning. But even with weeks to prepare before the Civil War is once more at its gates, that doesn’t mean the people of Nantwich are safe.