Review: - Black Swan Rising by Lee Carroll

In the interest of full disclosure, let me just say that I read Hanna’s review of Black Swan Rising before I had actually started the novel. Although I try not to let other people’s opinions influence my reading of books, I did agree with many of the point she made about this one. I did enjoy the novel, but parts of it weren’t quite enough for me. Personally, I’m massively interested in jewellery design – it was the thing I wanted to do at college but couldn’t face asking my parents to pay the stupidly huge studio and use of equipment fees – and I would have loved it if the book were a little more centred around that. As it was, Garet’s jewellery design business seemed nothing more than a premise to kick the action off, and after that it just became a sort of ‘by the way’. I wouldn’t have minded this so much if the blurb hadn’t made such a big deal of her being a jewellery designer –it made it seem like jewellery design would be integral to the story, and it just wasn’t.

The novel opens with Garet James on her way home to her father after hearing from their lawyer that they are in such bad debt that they are in danger of losing their home, which also doubles as an art gallery, Garet’s workshop, and their major source of income. Sheltering from rain, she finds herself in an antique jewellers shop, where a mysterious old man presents her with a sealed silver box with a seal which matches the pattern on her signet ring. Intrigued, she takes the box, promising to open and return it. Later that evening, she returns home and manages to open the box, somehow causing the contents to burn up, leaving only the name Will Hughes recognisable. Later that night, the house is broken into by terrifying men, who steal some paintings from the gallery, and escape through her skylight, taking the silver box and leaving her father wounded. With her father in hospital, Garet gets in touch with Will Hughes – a millionaire hedge fund manager whose company, Black Swan Partners, bears a logo of the same image as that on the box and her ring. She hopes that Hughes can help her find out who is behind the robbery, but what he really does is open the door to a whole new world for Garet...

I have to say, I kind of hated the character of Will Hughes. Like Hanna, I really didn’t see the point of him, and it kind of seemed like Carroll was trying to do a bit of a Twilight on me. I just don’t buy that all vampires are that sexy. The Cullen family are enough, no more please. Get a new love interest. Eurgh. It was odd, because I really liked the way that mythology and fairyland were incorporated into the story as a whole. I enjoyed the character of Oberon and lot, and also Ariel and Melusina were quite cool. I also liked the whole idea of Garet’s ancestors having passed on this task of being the Watchtower to her, but I have to say I didn’t really like her all that much. I have this thing, sometimes, where I just don’t believe a character – whatever they say, whatever they do, they just never quite become three dimensional for me, and that’s what happened with both Garet and Will. The only characters who really came alive for me, oddly enough, were Jay and Becky, Garet’s best friends. Maybe because they were the ones to whom traits of humanity were attributed – they are the ones who suffer for Garet, who help her through the death of her mother, who stay with her after the robbery and visit her father in hospital, and who just support her through everything she does, no matter how crazy. I think the major thing about the book was that I really wanted Garet and Jay to get together, and for her to stop being so completely self absorbed that she just didn’t care about her ‘best friend’s pain, and kept running off with some guy who basically had no personality, because let’s face it, nothing seemed to matter to her except that he was goodlooking. Bleh.

Having said all that, I did enjoy reading the book, and I finished it wanting to read the next in the series, despite thinking that I’ll probably feel let down by it, just by virtue of it being about Garet trying to find Will Hughes (what’s up with the continual use of both of his names, too?). I do wish that they’d used more of the swan mythology that was vaguely present throughout the novel, and I hope that the next novel will develop the mythological aspect of the story a bit more, because then I think I could really enjoy it. I really did, except for the niggling things which bothered me about it. Basically put, it had great potential, but didn’t quite live up to it for me.

Review: - The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark

The Sandalwood Tree is the first of my four books that I’m reading for the Transworld Book Group Challenge. Probably because of this, at least in part, I've been seeing a lot of reviews of it lately, so I hope this one will add to an already large barrage of people extolling the virtues of this book, and convince you to read it!

The focal topic of the novel is India under British rule, and it covers the stories of three British women living in India almost 100 years apart. Evie Mitchell goes to India with her husband, Martin, who is studying for a PhD in 1947, just as the British are preparing to leave India for good. She hopes that travelling with her husband will somehow fix their marriage which has been demolished by the psychological after effects of the Second World War.  Behind a brick in her kitchen wall, she discovers the letters of two Victorian women, Felicity and Adela, and becomes fascinated by their story.

The novel parallels both British and Indian society in 1857 and in 1947. The essential message I took away from it was that in 100 years, the British in India (and in this I stress I don’t mean either the British or Indian people, but the beaurocracy) hadn’t changed or evolved at all. Both stories just reeked of colonialism and the British obsession with the Empire. Although Evie and Martin are Americans, I often forgot this and was surprised when Evie was so judgemental of the British women at the club, who really reminded me of the women in Kipling’s The Man Who would Be King, which I struggled through earlier this year.  Throughout the novel Evie struggles to come to terms with India; with the prejudice that her son is learning through the violent incidents which take place, including a couple of really quite disturbing incidents, with the attitudes of the British women and the way that racism is inherent to the culture of the British in India, and with her own lack of freedom, both in society and within her marriage. 

There was so much going on in The Sandalwood Tree, and I absolutely loved how fast paced and full of energy it was. Elle Newmark’s writing was good – not as spectacular as Steinbeck’s, which may have counted slightly against it as I finished East of Eden just before starting this novel – but very readable. She tells an engaging story, and I really liked the character of Evie. I know that many people don’t mind if a central character is not well drawn as long as the writer can really write the scenery or the action or whatever, but for me a book is always about 50% less enjoyable if I don’t believe in the central character. It’s not that I have to like them – I’m honestly not bothered if I spend an entire book wishing a character were real so I could punch them in the face – just as long as they make me feel something.

With my rampaging passion for reading about the history of women and their independence, this book was an absolute gift. In the 19^th century, Felicity Chadwick is a complete oddity – a woman who doesn’t want to get married, and just wants to be left to live her life alone, the way that she wants to live it, in India, the country she loves. The Chadwick family have worked for the East India Company for generations, and so there are certain accepted norms. Because of this as a young child Felicity is sent from India to Britain to live with a host family, and be educated there. Mr & Mrs Winfield have a daughter the same age as Felicity, and soon the girls become very close friends. As a young woman Felicity returns to India, and a year later, after a social scandal, Adela joins her there.

I really enjoyed the way that Newmark tells their story through a mixture of letters and diary entries found by Evie and chapters told from Adela’s point of view – it’s a brilliant way to entangle the stories. As Evie is going through the motions of her day to day life, wondering if her marriage can survive – wondering if she can survive living with a man who roams around the country dressed as a native, while forbidding her from going farther than the (very) local village as it is ‘too dangerous’, and trying to shelter her young son from some of the atrocities which are taking place, she is learning about the atrocities suffered by women over a century before.

The sense of atmosphere was brilliant by virtue of its not being created by laboured descriptive passages, but by amalgamation of local Indian phrases into the dialogue, and the way that the characters go about their day to day lives using things which are quintessentially Indian rather than British.

Evie’s husband Martin is suffering from post –war trauma, which in totally British fashion he is trying to deal with by not talking about it and trying to ignore it. While doing this, he is dressing in an increasingly Indian fashion, causing his family and friends to worry that he could get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, and be mistaken for a local. Evie feels increasingly distanced from him, and living in India only seems to be serving to push them further apart, but as the novel progresses, lots of things happen which serve to bring them back together again.

I loved the feeling of transportation this book gave me. It was one of those that I read and ended up feeling physically warm, because it had such great transportive power. It was also a really quick read, and great for my brain, which has been sleepy lately! I just have to say that I love the whole idea of this Challenge. Obviously I'm not going to object to anything where I get brand new books for free, but equally I won't just read something because it's free - it has to look interesting. This did, and it totally lived up to my expectations!

Apologies, The Transworld Book Group & UK and EU Summer Hop Winner!

Thanks to everybody who participated in this great event! I don't know about you, but I was so excited to go through a list of blogs and know that I wouldn't get to the end of the post just to realise I wasn't eligible to enter the giveaway! I had a great time, and found lots of great new blogs to follow. So here it is, the winner of an (almost) new copy of Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman's Good Omens iiiiiissss:

***JUDITH!***

Congratulations!

Also I just want to apologise for my absence from the blogosphere lately... My home internet is absolutely dead and we're not sure why at the moment, so I've not been able to post much. I have just discovered that Starbucks next to my work does have access, though, so hopefully I will be able to utilise that more often! I'm really behind on reviews, so I really hope I'm able to get back up to speed soon! 

Finally, and very excitingly, I'm taking part in the Transworld Book Group Challenge this summer. For this, I have to read four books between August and October, which I could choose from a big long list, and the lovely people at Transworld send me the books. All I have to do is review them and pass the link on to the publishers, and once I've done that I get the next book. It's brilliant! My four choices are:

• The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark (this is already on my bedside table, waiting for me to finish East of Eden, which should be sometime today!)
• Black Swan Rising by Lee Carroll
• Death Sentence by Mikkel Birkgaard (I really really enjoyed Library of Shadows, so I'm very excited about this)
• The Obscure Logic of the Heart by Priya Basil

Look out for my reviews! :-)