10. Sword Song

by Bernard Cornwell
Rated: 4 1/2 Stars

Once more into another exciting breach, and this time, Uhtred has to defend the ancient and decayed Roman city of London against the rampaging Vikings, who aim to conquer England and enslave the native Saxons. Like the others before it's filled with bloodletting, battles, political schemes, and just a little romance. Ethelflaed, the daughter of Alfred is introduced as a character in this book and I am hoping that she will become a player in books to come. She had an interesting roll to play in the history of Mercia and I am taking this as a sign that Cornwell intends to explore it.

This book should have been an easy 5 star plus but Cornwell's portrayal of Alfred really annoys me. I am usually a pretty easy going reader and am not one to insist on total historical accuracy in a book of fiction. As long as the author keeps it somewhat plausible I am willing to go down almost any road. But to my mind, the man Cornwell is calling Alfred the Great comes off the pages as Alfred the Weak and Stupid. And once an author looses credibility with me if affects my enjoyment of a story as a whole. I feel like I am no longer reading Historical Fiction but have been pushed over into the Fantasy genre. It's like being invited out to eat hamburgers and being served hot dogs instead. Nothing wrong with hot dogs, it just wasn't what I was expecting.

9. Touchstone

In England in 1926, New Yorker Harris Stuyvesant is tracking the bomber who blew up his sweetheart and permanently injured his brother. A sinister operative leads him to Bennett Grey, whose injuries in World War I make him terrifyingly sensitive to every movement and gesture and who has hidden himself in Cornwall. These three, Grey's former lover Lady Laura Hurleigh, and his sister, Sarah, form the points of an intricate star drawn around the old families and the coming general strike, the legacy of the war, and the desperation of poverty and class struggle. King works her mastery not only in a vivid and sometimes terrifying psychological study but also through gorgeous evocation of the English landscape, detailed description of the dynamics in a country house inhabited by the same family for half a millennium, and perceptive analysis of the intricate complexities of politics, power and gender, and social justice. Cinematic in the intensity of its shifting points of view and boasting characters so charismatic that we can hear not only their voices but also the sound of their breathing,

7. The Diary of Samuel Pepys

Rated 4 1/2 Stars

I read this book in starts and stops since it was definalely put-downable but equally pick-upable. For a very readable peek at the life and times of the people of Britain during the 17th century this is the best I have run across.

Upon his death Samuel Pepys left six, calf-bound volumes filled with his daily diaries, pages recording the quotidian details of great but humble man living in a great time. The diaries are one of the most remarkable personal documents in the English language. Written with seriousness and humor, they are a unique blend of history and memoir, philosophy and broadsheet, gravitas and the light of wit. Samuel Pepys genius is in equal ranks with the British tradition that produced Chaucer, Shakespeare, Austen, and Woolf.

8. The Diabolical Baron

By Mary Jo Putney

Rated 4 stars

Although the cover says the name of this book is Dangerous Know, that is just a short story in the back of the book. The main book is The Diabolical Baron and is about Jason Kincaid and Caroline Hanscombe, in fact there are four main characters: Richard Dalton and Caroline's Aunt Jessica come into it as well. Jason chooses Caroline as his bride at random - he literally draws her name out of a bowl - and she accepts him under duress. But she won't accept his invitation to his country estate unless her aunt accompanies her. But Jessica and Jason have met before....

6. The flame trees of Thika : memories of an African childhood

By Edith Huxley

Rated 5 Stars

In 1913, at the age of six, Elspeth Huxley accompanied her parents from England to their recently acquired land in Kenya, "a bit of El Dorado my father had been fortunate enough to buy in the bar of the Norfolk hotel from a man wearing an Old Etonian tie." The land is not nearly what its seller claimed, but Elspeth's parents are undaunted and begin their coffee plantation. Her mother, a resourceful, adventurous woman, "eager always to extract from every moment its last drop of interest or pleasure," keeps an eye on Elspeth's education but also allows her extensive freedom. Through Elspeth Huxley's marvelous gift for description, early twentieth-century Kenya comes alive with all the excitement and naive insight of a child who watches with eyes wide open as coffee trees are planted, buffaloes are skinned, pythons are disemboweled, and cultures collide with all the grace of runaway trains. With a free-wheeling imagination and a dry wit, she describes the interactions of Kikuyus, Masais, Dutch Boers, Brits and Scots, mixing rapid-fire descriptions with philosophical musings. It is a mixture that suits her land of contrasts and unknowns, where vastly different peoples live and work side by side but rarely come together, like an egg beater whose "the two arms whirled independently and never touched, so that perhaps one arm never knew the other was there; yet they were together, turned by the same handle, and the cake was mixed by both."

5. Brothers in battle, best of friends

By Bill Guarnere and Babe Heffron
Rated 3 Stars

I think this book was just "a bridge too far" for me. I have pretty much burned out on Easy Company. Still, it was interesting and I read it to the end.


"To single out one or two of [the] Screaming Eagles as the Most Super-Duper Paratrooper or the Best Source for a free beer on VE day would be a fool's errand. But to fail to single out Bill Guarnere and Babe Heffron would overlook a grand entertainment and a stirring inspiration. "'Wild Bill' and 'Babe.' Even their names beg the telling of their tale, like great ball players from the 1920s, or legendary lawmen-or outlaws-of the Old West." Book jacket.

4. The Mercy of Thin Air

By Ronlyn Domingue
Rated 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book and so did Shaun. It was a very poignant, well written and the mystery kept me hanging until the very end.

In 1920s New Orleans, Raziela Nolan is in the throes of a magnificent love affair when she dies in a tragic accident. She narrages the story of her lost love, as well as the relationship of the couple whose house she haunts more than 75 years later. The couple's trials compel Razi to slowly unravel the mystery of what happened to her first and only love, and to confront a long hidden secret.

3. A House with Four Rooms

By Rumer Godden
Rated 4 Stars

In her second volume of memoirs, following a A Time to Dance, No Time to Weep , Godden provides a lively, engaging view of postwar literary and publishing trends as a backdrop to her own personal and creative development. In 1945, her marriage over, she returned home to England from India with two children and few possessions; however, with an unwavering commitment to her writing, she embarked on a career which brought international recognition and acclaim for her adult and children's books. She speaks lovingly of those who encouraged her over the years, including her sister Jon, London agent Spencer Curtis Brown, Viking publishing president Ben Huebsch (her "literary father"), and the late James Haynes-Dixon, with whom she enjoyed a sturdy second marriage. She also recounts in colorful detail her collaboration with French director Jean Renoir during the filming of her novel The River in California and on location in India. We part company with her in the late 1970s as she moves to Scotland. Godden's travels and experiences are related with warmth and insight, and she offers an interesting perspective on the major publishing figures of our time.

2. A time to dance, no time to weep

By Rumer Godden
Rated 4 Stars

This autobiography covers the first 40 years of the life of Rumer Godden who was one of the most prolific authors of her time.

Born in India, at the height of British colonial power, she lived there until the 1950s. Her career as a novelist began with "Black Narcissus", which became a bestseller on publication in 1939 - and like many of her novels - was adapted into a film. Her relationship with India, although passionate, was ultimately and perhaps inevitably ambivalent and this ambivalence came to a head in an incident when she and her children were living in Kashmir. A servant tried to poison them and the notoriety surrounding the case forced Godden to leave Kashmir and eventually India itself.

She belongs in that small and exclusive club of women - it includes Isak Dinesen and Beryl Markham - who could do pretty well anything they set their minds to: hunting tigers, bewitching men, throwing elegant dinner parties, winning literary fame.