Book Babe: September 2014

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Color Song: A YA Heroine Struggles To Be An Artist in 16th Century Italy #Giveaway

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By the author of the acclaimed Passion Blue, a Kirkus Reviews Best Teen Book of 2012 and “a rare, rewarding, sumptuous exploration of artistic passion,” comes a fascinating companion novel.

Artistically brilliant, Giulia is blessed – or cursed – with a spirit’s gift: she can hear the mysterious singing of the colors she creates in the convent workshop of Maestra Humilità. It’s here that Giulia, forced into the convent against her will, has found unexpected happiness, and rekindled her passion to become a painter – an impossible dream for any woman in 15th century Italy.

But when a dying Humilità bequeaths Giulia her most prized possession – the secret formula for the luminously beautiful paint called Passion blue – Giulia realizes she’s in danger from those who have long coveted the famous color for themselves. Faced with the prospect of lifelong imprisonment in the convent, forever barred from painting as a punishment for keeping Humilita’s secret, Giulia is struck by a desperate idea: What if she disguises herself as a boy? Could she make her way to Venice and find work as an artist’s apprentice?

Along with the truth of who she is, Giulia carries more dangerous secrets: the exquisite voices of her paint colors and the formula for Humilità’s precious blue. And Venice, with its graceful gondolas and twisting canals, its gilded palazzi and masked balls, has secrets of its own. Trapped in her false identity in this dream-like place where reality and reflection are easily confused, where art and ambition, love and deception hover like dense fog, can Giulia find her way?

This compelling novel explores timeless themes of love and illusion, gender and identity as it asks the question: what does it mean to risk everything to follow your true passion?

*************Review**************

Color Song by Victoria Strauss is a sequel. The first book of this YA historical saga is Passion Blue. Readers should be aware that Color Song contains many references to the events of Passion Blue. These would be a good reminder if you’ve already read it, but they would be spoilers if you haven’t read it. This wasn’t a problem for me, but spoiler sensitive readers are advised to read Passion Blue first. I received an uncorrected proof of this book from the publisher via Net Galley.

The fictional central character, Guilia Borromeo, is a young female painter in 16^th century Italy who hears colors singing to her.  This factor is what makes the book distinctive.  It’s the reason why I was attracted to it.   Hearing colors, or seeing music are examples of a difference in perception that is known as synesthesia.  I am interested in artists with synesthesia.  Find out more about it from the Wikipedia article Synesthesia in Art.

Guilia, the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman, had been consigned to a nunnery in Padua.  It’s there that she learned to paint.  Guilia seemed to think that her convent was the only place where nuns painted.  I came across a 16^th century prioress in Florence who painted named Plautilla Nelli.  She wasn’t the only one.  There is actually a scholarly study called Nuns As Artists: The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent by Jeffrey F. Hamburger.

Although there is a romance element in this novel, this book is primarily about Guilia’s efforts to continue painting and attain some degree of autonomy in a historical period where few women could ever hope to have any freedom at all.  There were exceptions.  The exceptional autonomous woman shown in Color Song will surprise readers.^. On the other hand, there were also some events in the plot of this book that I found predictable.

Synesthesia wasn’t in the foreground for the overwhelming majority of Color Song, but one plot development did turn on Guilia’s ability to hear colors.  That incident led me to imagine an art detective series in which the protagonist has a gift like Guilia’s.  I continue to look for a book whose central focus is an artist’s synesthesia.

Buy the Book

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About the Author

Victoria Strauss is the author of nine novels for adults and young adults, including the STONE duology (THE ARM OF THE STONE and THE GARDEN OF THE STONE), and a historical novel for teens, PASSION BLUE. She has written hundreds of book reviews for magazines and ezines, including SF Site, and her articles on writing have appeared in Writer's Digest and elsewhere. In 2006, she served as a judge for the World Fantasy Awards.

An active member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), she's co-founder, with Ann Crispin, of Writer Beware, a publishing industry watchdog group that tracks and warns about literary fraud. She maintains the popular Writer Beware website, Facebook page, and blog, for which she was a 2012 winner of an Independent Book Blogger Award. She was honored with the SFWA Service Award in 2009.

She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

For more information please visit Victoria's Strauss's website. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Goodreads.

Color Song Blog Tour & Book Blast Schedule

Monday, September 16
Book Blast at Passages to the Past
Book Blast at The True Book Addict
Tuesday, September 17
Review at Oh the Books
Book Blast at The Maiden's Court
Wednesday, September 18
Review at Casual Readers
Review at Leeanna.com (Passion Blue)
Thursday, September 19
Review at Leeanna.com
Monday, September 22
Review at Ageless Pages Reviews
Feature at Oh the Books
Tuesday, September 23
Book Blast at Flashlight Commentary
Wednesday, September 24
Review at History from a Woman's Perspective
Interview at Bibliophilia, Please
Book Blast at Reading Lark
Thursday, September 25
Book Blast at A Book Geek
Friday, September 26
Review at Reading Room Book Reviews
Book Blast at Just One More Chapter
Monday, September 29
Review at Tribute Books Mama
Interview at Math, Science & Social Studies...Oh My!
Tuesday, September 30
Review at Book Babe
Book Blast at Historical Fiction Connection
Wednesday, October 1
Review & Interview at Bookish
Book Blast at Historical Tapestry
Thursday, October 2
Review at Brooke Blogs
Review at Oh, for the Hook of a Book
Friday, October 3
Review at A Bibliotaph's Reviews
Book Blast at The Lit Bitch
Saturday, October 4
Book Blast at Susan Heim on Writing
Monday, October 6
Review at WTF Are You Reading?
Book Blast at Let Them Read Books
Tuesday, October 7
Review at A Leisure Moment
Wednesday, October 8
Review at Peeking Between the Pages
Friday, October 10
Review at A Bookish Affair

Giveaways

To enter to win any of the following prizes please complete the form below:

2 Grand Prizes Winners: One Kindle Paperwhite with custom Color Song cover with Color Song and Passion Blue ebooks pre-loaded, plus swag (postcards, bookmarks), and signed paperback editions of Strauss's Stone duology (The Arm of the Stone and The Garden of the Stone) (US only)

2 winners: Signed hardcovers of Color Song and Passion Blue, plus swag (postcards, bookmarks) (US and Canada)

5 winners: Signed paperbacks of Color Song and Passion Blue, plus swag (postcards, bookmarks) (US and Canada)

Giveaway ends at 11:59pm on October 10th. You must be 18 or older to enter.
Winner will be chosen via Rafflecopter on October 11th and notified via email.
Winner have 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Monday, September 29, 2014

Amazon Burning: Dramatic Red Alert With Compelling Characters

It’s been some time since a book has taken me to Brazil. Those who used to read my previous blog, The Unmasked Persona's Reviews , would know that I reviewed several books by the widely revered classic Brazilian author Jorge Amado, that I’m interested in Brazilian history and in Afro-Brazilian religion. Amazon Burning by Victoria Griffith also isn’t the first book I’ve read dealing with the need to preserve the fragile ecology of the Amazon Basin. Its fragility isn’t addressed in this novel, but I thought I’d mention it before beginning my discussion of Griffith’s work.

Here’s the background on this issue. Many people aren’t aware that when all the trees are logged out of the Amazon jungle, there will be no topsoil left. The entire area will become a vast desert. Stripped of the jungle’s resources, the Brazilian economy will collapse. Even worse, global warming will become irreversible. See this Climate Warning From 2006. Preserving the jungle’s biological diversity is certainly important, but what is really crucial is preserving Brazil’s future and the future of humanity. These are the reasons why the struggle of the heroic central characters of Griffith’s book is so urgent.

I consider Amazon Burning a very timely red alert. I received a free copy from the publisher in return for an honest review.

I must apologize for starting this review with a lecture. Amazon Burning is not some ponderous academic study. It’s actually a suspenseful romantic eco-thriller that begins with the murder of activist Milton Silva. The point of view character is Emma Cohen, an idealistic journalism student at New York University who has left behind a major legal predicament that gradually unfolds over the course of the novel. Like her crusading journalist father, Emma believes that her vocation is to right all wrongs through investigation and publication of every instance of inequality and injustice. Until she came to Brazil, she hadn’t quite grasped how dangerous her career can be. Griffith deals with Emma’s maturation along with the critical problems that she faces in the Amazon. In many cases, this process of growing up entails a surrender to cynicism, but Emma’s commitment to her principles survives all her hardships. I found this really wonderful to behold. By the end of the novel, Emma has become more resilient and a credit to her profession.

Another significant element in this book is the people that Griffith calls the Yanomami. Elsewhere I have seen them named the Yanomamo. The Yanomami/Yanomamo are only one of many indigenous groups that reside in the Amazon jungle. Anthropologist Napoleon A. Chagnon romanticized them, but Griffith portrays the degradation of their environment and the decline of their health. If you would like to learn more about them, I would recommend Spirit of the Rainforest which is written from their perspective. Griffith shows that they aren’t passive victims. When they become aware of their options, they are quick to take advantage of them. I really liked seeing a bit of Brazilian indigenous culture in this book. Griffith provides us a genuine sense of place. I definitely felt transported to Brazil.

The romance took time to develop due to plausible barriers that resulted from the characters' circumstances. Some readers might consider these barriers contrived, and might have preferred the course of true love to have been smoother. Yet that would have interfered with the tension necessary in a thriller plot. So I think that Griffith's decisions about the romance relationship were good ones.

Even though Amazon Burning has a number of strengths, I had doubts about a couple of details. Emma is depicted as being able to see what is happening outside a plane while traveling in a cargo compartment. I’ve been advised by co-blogger Tara, who knows a great deal about airplanes, that it’s highly unlikely that there would be windows in a cargo compartment. More importantly, I wondered which judge would have allowed Emma, a defendant faced with a serious charge, to travel as far as Brazil while awaiting trial. I kept on wanting her legal situation to be fully clarified. I didn’t feel that I ever understood how or why she had no restrictions on traveling in her position. It could be that one or the other of her parents had officially posted bond and told the judge that they would make certain that she appeared in court, but I would have been happier if readers were told that up front.

Finally, I had a disagreement with a statement that was made by one of the characters about capoeira. He said that it was more like dance than a martial art and that it was “pretend fighting”. That may be an accurate representation of that character’s practice of capoeira, but capoeira isn’t uniformly non-violent. Capoeira can be beautiful in an exhibition, but so is a solo karate kata sequence. That too may appear to be like a dance, but no one would argue that karate isn’t a genuine martial art. Capoeira can actually be quite deadly despite appearances. Please read Is Capoeira An Effective Martial Art? I found it to be very informative article about the history and practice of capoeira.

Despite these relatively minor missteps, I really did enjoy Amazon Burning. There were some clever red herrings provided for readers to chew on during the course of the murder investigation. I never guessed who murdered Milton Silva until the truth was finally revealed close to the end of the novel.

So Victoria Griffith has given us a successful mystery dealing dramatically with important themes, containing sympathetic characters who develop over the course of the narrative, and a credible representation of Brazil.

Sunday, September 28, 2014

What's the Truth About Women?

I had to think on this movie for an entire night and day before deciding it was review worthy. Oh--I liked it, very much. It was extremely enjoyable. I just didn't--at least right away--"get it".

It took me a bit to realize there is no truth about women. Like men, women are all different. And why not? We come from different walks of life, different cultures, religions, households, countries. None of us are going to be the same. We'll perhaps have some things in common and we, each and every one of us, can drive men batty, as witnessed in this movie directed by Muriel Box.

The main character in this movie is a man, an older gentleman who sits down with another man (less likable and needing a good wallop upside the head) and tells this younger man about his past with many different women. It then goes back in time, to Victorian? England or Edwardian and we meet all these different women who have influenced his life.

There's the suffragette who doesn't believe in hunting and wants to live with him a year before they marry. Imagine that! Back then! Needless to say though, I loved her. This relationship goes awry due to a bit of a misunderstanding and some bad luck. From there we go to India or a country similar (I can't remember the name) where we meet a lady who goes to the Sultan's harem and I had a hard time seeing why this bit was added to the movie at all. But I appreciated the conversation the Sultan has with the hero, about just who was barbaric in their treatment of women--the Sultan with a woman "per job" or England who has one woman to do it all. You have to watch it. Seriously.

Then we go to France where the women marry for money and have affairs. And there's an absolute mess and this had me shaking my head, saying, "Well, Muriel, you didn't do us any favors with this bit here. You made us women look horrid", but in the end I realized this story shows our loyalty--not to men, but to each other.

Then we go to America where we see both happiness and sadness, a combination of love and disappointment. A woman becomes a wife and mother and seems overjoyed with her lot in life, but at the same time has to quit painting. This was moving. I didn't know whether to be happy or sad for the woman and I think that's what Muriel was going for here.

Muriel Box

And the last woman...a nurse in WWI...takes us to the English courts, where a price is put on her head. How much is a wife worth? Should a man sell his wife? At this point in history, were we still considered mere property? And here we see yet another woman sacrifice her dream for a man.

So what is the truth about women? We're all different, but we all have hearts, dreams, and experience love and passion. Some of us will do anything for those we love, even give up our own happiness. Some of us are careless with our hearts; some less so. But there is one thing every single woman has in common in this movie: they all sacrifice something. I guess the question is, is it worth it?

Directed in 1957 by a feminist film director, The Truth About Women is worth watching. It's enjoyable, goes all over the place, and introduces us to some interesting and remarkable ladies. It also has adventure. In the end we're no closer to the "truth" about women, but it sure is a fun romp getting to that conclusion.

I learned of this movie whilst reading a biography about ten successful women in the fifties. In it, Muriel Box is quoted as saying, "Unable to chain myself to the railings, at least I could rattle the film chains." She was intrigued by the suffragettes and wanted to make a feminist movie.

I watched this free on Amazon Prime.

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley: A Story that Shows the Parallels In the Different Types of Hatred in American History

It's been nearly four months since we first came to Jefferson. Still, every day, when I walk out of that school building, my heart pounds and my hands tremble. Every day, there's a roaring in my ears no voice can penetrate.

Can you imagine going to school worrying about whether you'd be hung from the flag pole? Imagine not being able to join the cheerleader team because nobody would hear your cheers over the sounds of people calling you names. Imagine fearing for your life every day.

In 1959, five years after the federal courts said integration of school was the LAW, the state of Virginia still balked, protested, and even shut the schools down to avoid this. This was way after Little Rock. But imagine being the first African-American to enter this school, this place in which there was so much resistance to your presence. The heroine, Sarah, faces this nonsense along with 9 others. It's an angry mob of white kids day after day, hour after hour, yelling, screaming names and insults, throwing baseballs and spitting. Stories like this make me very ashamed to be American.

Sarah's parts were just painful to read. Sad. I cried, grew angry, and many times had to set the book aside as my emotions were just too much. Robin Talley did a superb job.

But the blurb doesn't mention that there's another battle here, another type of prejudice that Sarah must worry about on top of this. The hatred against gays. She's attracted to her own sex and is constantly trying to hide it, has been raised to feel ashamed of her feelings. It's unnatural. Sinful. And things get out of hand with a white girl named Linda, who is also confused.

And this is where the book lost me. I'm totally fine with the lesbian story line, but if you're going to make two girls attracted to each other, make something attractive about them! While Sarah was a sweet and strong soul and I could see why Linda would be attracted to her, I could not--not even for a second--see what Sarah saw in the racist, bigoted, evil Linda. Sarah's attraction to Linda was just completely unbelievable to me. I don't care that Linda changed in the end--too little too late. She was an ugly person still.

And I'm torn as to what I thought about Linda's parts. She was half the narrative. She's ugly and has ugly thoughts. I didn't care to read about her racist, nasty ways. BUT on the other hand, I admire the way the author tackled this: showing us both sides of the race issue. Did I agree with Linda? Not one little bit, but I came to understand that she was merely brainwashed and as she slowly learned to think for herself, she was confused. What she'd been told and what she was seeing were two entirely different things. Her story really goes to show how much our parents influence us.

I appreciate learning about this particular situation in American history. It didn't stop with Little Rock. You hear so much about LR, but not Virginia. I hated how ugly things were, but it really happened that way. I think the writing is stellar, but the lesbian story just didn't work for me in light of what I mentioned above. There was never anything attractive about Linda. I just can't see or feel this supposed connection. It came out of nowhere. I also think that the blurb should at least hint to this extra story line, as the LBGT thing isn't for everyone.

Friday, September 26, 2014

Take an adventure down under in Charming The Outback by Leesa Bow

In Charming the Outback, we get to take a trip to Australia and experience the way they live and their culture. I enjoyed seeing the differences from how things are where I live in the USA. I found Maddy to be a strong woman to want to change her usual ways and embrace the more country and hard working lifestyle of working on a station.

What is a station?
In Australia, a station is a large landholding used for livestock production. It corresponds to the North American term ranch or South American estancia. The owner of a station is called a grazier (which corresponds to the North American term rancher) or pastoralist.

Charming the Outback is a second chance love story...usually one of my favorite types of romance stories. I enjoy seeing two people find their way back to one another and working through their problems. Which is what Luke and Maddy did.

The beginning of this story was slow and I didn't feel the connection right away between Maddy and Luke. He was awful to her and a big jerk. She became friends with another guy, Zane. And to be honest, I felt more chemistry between them. They were more flirtatious with one another, joking, and more at ease. When Maddy was with Luke, it was just anger toward one another, which I usually like, don't get me wrong. I like a strong conflict and the hero and heroine having a hard time getting along. I think throwing Zane into the story, made me want to see Maddy with him. I hope that Zane gets a story soon. I'd like to see him find love and settle down from his playboy ways.

*Possible spoiler*

The heroine grows a lot in this story. She matures - which is one of Luke's biggest complaints about her. She shows him that she can be the woman he wants her to be. Until the very end, I never saw Luke changing for her. He was very hard on the heroine and the way she was throughout the story. Thankfully in the end, he wised up and finally saw he needed to compromise as well if things were going to work out with the woman he loved.

*End possible spoiler*

All in all, I enjoyed the story. This is a very sweet story, little to no sex in it. And when there is sex, it's not in much detail. You get the idea they are together and that's as far as it goes. I enjoyed all the secondary characters and will be interested in their stories when they come out. I've not read the first book Winning The Player, but it's not needed to enjoy this story. As they are written as stand alone stories.

My Rating:

The book summary:

When jaded city girl Maddy McIntyre packs up and leaves Adelaide for a new job in the country, it's not only a chance at a fresh start. Six months ago, the first guy she'd ever loved shattered her heart before moving home to Broken Hill. Deep down inside, Maddy is hoping that living in the same town will give her an opportunity to prove to Luke that she's one temptation he can't resist.

But when she arrives in Broken Hill, Luke White is not the same guy she knew in the city. And it soon seems very clear that he doesn't want her there. Although Maddy settles in quickly, excelling at work and partying with her new friends, she can't understand why Luke is remaining so distant. Particularly when all her instincts are telling her that they're meant to be together – and that he feels the same burning attraction.

As Maddy learns more about Luke's family and background, she begins to understand that his mixed messages are caused by balancing what's expected of him with what he really wants. Maddy gave Luke her heart long ago and, despite their differences, she knows she'll only ever be happy with her hot country boy. But how can she convince him that she's the risk he needs to take?

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Goddess Born: A Magically Gifted Healer Faces Witch Hysteria in 18th Century Pennsylvania

In colonial America the concept of an ethical magical practitioner didn’t exist. There was no vocabulary that would allow people to discuss such a person, and therefore no way to even imagine that someone like the protagonist of Goddess Born could be real. Selah Kilbrid was a healer and midwife in a predominately Quaker town in Pennsylvania, but she was also secretly a descendant of the Goddess Brigid who gave her super-human powers to heal magically. In modern parlance, I would characterize Selah as a priestess of Brigid. In 1730 the full truth about Selah could never be known because she would be condemned as a witch. Selah is forced to take some highly unusual steps to escape this accusation. Historically, colonial witch hysteria targeted people who didn’t practice magic at all with the possible exception of the slave Tituba, but Goddess Born by Kari Edgren is a historical paranormal romance. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in return for an honest review.

We generally associate Puritans with colonial witch hysteria, not Quakers. Since Quakers are supposed to be non-violent and officially did not believe in witchcraft, it’s hard to imagine that the lodging of a formal accusation of witchcraft would have arisen in Pennsylvania during that time period. Yet it actually did happen once. See Pennsylvania's Only Witch Trial on the website Quakers in the World to learn more.

This has been a year in which I’ve discovered historical Quakers engaging in activities that are against Quaker principles. In Slavery and the Meetinghouse by Ryan P. Jordan, which I reviewed on my blog at http://shomeretmasked.blogspot.com/2014/08/slavery-and-meetinghouse-complex.html, I read about Quaker abolitionists who carried guns and even some Quakers who fought in the Civil War. These are Quakers that I had never envisaged. The modern Quakers that I’ve encountered have been strong proponents of non-violence. Now Kari Edgren has asked me to contemplate 18^th century Quakers persecuting a young woman who had benefited many members of her community. Do I think it’s believable? Unfortunately, I do. There was another novel that I read some time ago which causes me to find Goddess Born credible. It was Impassioned Clay by Stevie Davies (1999) which deals with Quakers persecuting women as heretics in 17^th century England. Stevie Davies is a historian who also wrote a non-fiction book called Unbridled Spirits which, as one of the reviews on Goodreads points out, contains some Quaker women. For more information about Stevie Davies, see her website at http://www.steviedavies.com/.

This book does contain some predictable elements that are due to its being a romance. Romance readers will want to know whether it adheres to the rule that every romance must end with HEA. I have to tell them that it isn’t quite HEA. Goddess Born ends with the chance of HEA which could be setting up for a sequel. A sequel would justify a delayed HEA. I found the ending a satisfying one. It resolves the Pennsylvania story line. I also enjoyed both the heroine and the hero. The heroine was unusual and the hero turned out to be both courageous and principled.

***

The power to heal is her divine gift, the fear of discovery, her mortal curse.

Selah Kilbrid is caught between two worlds. A direct descendant of the Celtic goddess Brigid, she is bound by Tuatha Dé law to help those in need. Yet as a human, she must keep her unique abilities hidden or risk being charged for a witch. In 1730 Pennsylvania, the Quaker community of Hopewell has become a haven for religious freedom—and fanaticism—and there are those who would see her hanged if the truth were revealed.

For eighteen years, Selah safely navigates the narrow gap between duty and self-preservation, until the day a prominent minister uncovers her secret. Obsessed with her power, Nathan Crowley disregards her betrothal to a distant cousin from Ireland and demands marriage in exchange for his silence. Selah stalls for time, but when news reaches the Colonies of her cousin’s death, time has run out.

Rather than submit to Nathan, Selah coerces a stranger to pose as her husband. It’s a good plan—her only plan—even though Henry Alan harbors his own dark secrets. But when she returns to Hopewell a married woman, the real fight has just begun. As unseen forces move against her, Selah doesn’t know which poses the greater danger—a malignant shadow closing in from outside or the internal fire that threatens to consume her heart.

Book Two in the Goddess Born series will be published in November 2014 and Book Three in June 2015.

Buy the eBook

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Carina Press

***

About the Author

Kari Edgren did not dream of becoming a writer. Instead, she dreamed of everything else and was often made to stay inside during kindergarten recess to practice her letters. Despite doting parents and a decent school system, Ms. Edgren managed to make it through elementary school having completed only one book cover to cover – The Box Car Children, which she read approximately forty-seven times. Things improved during high school, but not until she read Gabrielle Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude in college, did she truly understand the power of a book.

Ms. Edgren aspires to be a Vulcan, a world-acclaimed opera singer, and two inches taller. She resides in the Pacific NW where she spends a great deal of time torturing her husband and children with strange food and random historical facts. Ms. Edgren hasn’t stopped dreaming, but has finally mastered her letters enough to put the stories on paper.

For more information please visit Kari Edgren’s website. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, andGoodreads.