In the Mail This Week
Filed Under (New Books) by Morbid Romantic on 19-09-2009
Post Word Count: 1,004
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All the ETC: 
Across the Endless River by Thad Carhart (Review copy from publisher)
Carhart follows The Piano Shop on the Left Bank with an uneven historical about the divide between the rugged frontiers of the New World and the court intrigues of Europe. Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, son of Sacagawea, acts as a guide for natural scientist Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg. Impressed by Baptiste’s knowledge, Paul invites him to travel to Europe and assist him in cataloguing his North American treasures, beginning a five-year adventure that will see Baptiste change in ways he could not imagine. In Europe, Baptiste visits noble homes and palaces, attends lavish balls and beds charming women. He ambles through a Parisian market, taking in its pungent smells and the high, piercing cries from the sellers and later joins the French gentry on a civilized hunt. It’s all marvelously captured, and though Carhart can be less than subtle with some of the race politics, the biggest problem with this finely crafted milieu is that Baptiste’s survey of Europe feels more like a prelude than a plot. The imagery is stirring, but the story isn’t.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (Won in contest)
The letters comprising this small charming novel begin in 1946, when single, 30-something author Juliet Ashton (nom de plume Izzy Bickerstaff) writes to her publisher to say she is tired of covering the sunny side of war and its aftermath. When Guernsey farmer Dawsey Adams finds Juliet’s name in a used book and invites articulate—and not-so-articulate—neighbors to write Juliet with their stories, the book’s epistolary circle widens, putting Juliet back in the path of war stories. The occasionally contrived letters jump from incident to incident—including the formation of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society while Guernsey was under German occupation—and person to person in a manner that feels disjointed. But Juliet’s quips are so clever, the Guernsey inhabitants so enchanting and the small acts of heroism so vivid and moving that one forgives the authors (Shaffer died earlier this year) for not being able to settle on a single person or plot. Juliet finds in the letters not just inspiration for her next work, but also for her life—as will readers.
The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George (Paperbackswap)
Once again, George’s years of research result in an extremely detailed historical novel; following The Autobiography of Henry VIII (1986) and Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles (1992), the author now moves from sixteenth-century Europe to ancient North Africa to bring another legendary historical figure to contemporary understanding. Nimble despite its girth, the novel follows in first-person narrative every triumph and failure the famous queen of Egypt enjoyed and endured during her tumultuous life. This was, of course, a time when Egypt was at the mercy of more powerful neighbors; Cleopatra states the obvious when she says that “it seemed our fate was inextricably entwined with that of Rome.” The other two major players on her stage were, as most readers know, Julius Caesar and Marc Antony; and those two figures spring to life along with the queen herself in these many but fast-flowing pages. For historical fiction readers who want to totally lose themselves, this accurate re-creation of a vastly interesting time and place will not disappoint.
I’m the Vampire, That’s Why (Broken Heart, Oklahoma, Book 1) by Michele Bardsley (Paperbackswap)
When Jessica Matthews, a suburban divorcée and mother of two, gets savagely attacked one night by a werewolf, she awakens to find herself sucking blood from the thigh of 4,000-year-old vampire Patrick O’Halloran. He explains that the only way to have kept her from dying was to turn her into a vampire like himself. Now Jessica finds herself recruited to hunt the rampaging Lycan, who may be Patrick’s brother, alongside Patrick and the mysterious paranormal organization called the Consortium. Bardsley has done considerable research into Celtic legends in order to create her vampire society, but her research doesn’t make for a successful book. Rather than giving us, as the title would suggest, a satirical look at a soccer mom turned “sucker mom” attempting to balance normal daily life with a most abnormal nightlife, Bardsley focuses on Jessica’s explicit sexual longing for Patrick and the mundane conflict between the Consortium and their evil counterparts, the Wraith. Though amusing at times, the meat of this vampire tale is oddly bloodless.
Emperor: The Gates of Rome (Emperor, Book 1) by Conn Iggulden (Paperbackswap)
If the Roman Empire had taken as long to rise and fall as this novel takes to discover a main character and a plot, most of the world would still be wearing togas today. The story, such as it is, revolves around two boys: Gaius, the broody son of a wealthy senator, and Marcus, a prostitute’s mischievous child who is reared as Gaius’s brother and trained with him in the arts of war. Before the two boys reach majority, they are thrust into adulthood by the untimely death of Gaius’s father and take up residence in Rome with Gaius’s uncle Marius, a powerful consul who is vying with Sulla for control of the Republic. When Marcus is 14, he joins the Fourth Macedonian Legion to earn his fortune; Gaius remains by his uncle’s side. Iggulden lingers long over boyhood pranks, trying the reader’s patience; the pace picks up only halfway through the novel. Frequent fight scenes, ranging from individual combat to full scale battles, liven the mix somewhat, but the cartoon-like ability of the characters to bounce back after a few stitches weakens the effect. Though Iggulden has a solid grounding in Roman military history, anachronisms in speech and attitude (“Cabera took him outside and gave him a hiding”) roll underfoot and trip up authenticity. A major twist toward the end reveals the protagonists to be two of Roman history’s best-known figures, but readers with some knowledge of the period will have guessed their identities already. This is ultimately little more than a protracted introduction to a bigger story, which Iggulden will surely go on to tell.
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