The Girls With No Names: Historical Novel About Wayward Girls

The Girls With No Names by Serena Burdick is the first book I've read that was published in 2020.  It's also my first digital review copy from Net Galley of the year.   I noticed a similarity to Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate which I liked very much and reviewed here. I was also drawn to Burdick's novel because it takes place in Inwood, a Manhattan neighborhood where I lived for four years in the late 20th century (though I should point out that the book takes place in the early 20th century.) Yet it was the reference to suffragettes  in the Goodreads description and the reference to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the publisher's publicity which caused me to decide that I needed to review it for this blog.  It sounded like this novel could be a locus for intersecting feminist concerns.   So I accepted the publisher's request.  My honest reactions to The Girls With No Names can be found in this review.

                           

Although the main protagonists are teens, I wouldn't describe The Girls With No Names as a YA novel.  This book deals with the girls' coming of age under dire circumstances which involve mature themes that may be disturbing to some readers.

I found thirteen year old Effie remarkably brave when she comes to believe that she needs to rescue her sister from an institution with a rather horrific reputation called the House of Mercy.

I was also impressed with a girl that Effie encounters at the House of Mercy known as Mable.  Mable's tragic experiences  before her arrival at this home for wayward girls are portrayed movingly in flashback chapters.

 The Girls With No Names turned out not to have a primary focus on women's suffrage. Still,  the book does include a real suffragette who is a minor character playing a pivotal role.  Her name is Inez Milholland.  I've linked her Wikipedia article because I think readers might want to know more about this woman activist. Milholland's Wikipedia article includes a public domain photo of her which I am reproducing below:

                          

 There are Romanii characters in The Girls With No Names.  Burdick tells us in her Afterword that they are called gypsies in the first person narratives taking place in 1913 in order to be consistent with usage in that period.  She is aware that Romani consider "gypsy" offensive, but Burdick isn't trying to offend. She just wants to be historically accurate. I was fascinated to learn from the Afterword that Burdick had discovered from her research that Romani really had camped in the Inwood area during this period.

 I mostly liked the way the Romani were shown, but I did think that one element in their portrayal was anachronistic.  Effie got a Tarot reading at their camp which she regarded as significant.  The interpretation of the cards that appeared in the reading was similar to current day Neo Pagan Tarot readers.  So I considered it doubtful that an early 20th century Romani would approach the cards that way.

Despite the critical comment in the above paragraph,  I identified with both Effie and Mable and considered The Girls With No Names a powerful work of fiction.                 

Dead Man's Jazz--Speakeasy Musicians Are Murdered in YA Mystery

Dead Man's Jazz is the second in a mystery series by Connie B. Dowell.  I reviewed The Poison in All of Us, the first book in the series, here. I was looking forward to finding out how the small town Georgia teen investigators, Emmie and Dessa, would deal with crimes in the city of Savannah in 1919.  So I pre-ordered it on Amazon and have finally gotten a chance to review it.
                         
                             

My main impetus for reading The Poison In All of Us was that the case dealt with suffragettes.   There are suffragettes in this novel as well.  I would have to say that this is necessarily so because Emmie's mother, Irene, is a dedicated suffragette.  She decided to make the trip to Savannah in order to network with a Savannah suffragette leader.  Emmie and Dessa came along because they were on summer vacation from school.

I feel that it's important to note that Dead Man's Jazz takes place during the Red Summer of 1919.  This  was exactly a hundred years ago, and involved a nationwide intensification of white supremacist violence in the United States.  I found a relatively recent article about it from Teen Vogue here.  Connie Dowell also discusses it in her Author's Note.  Racism is a theme in  Dead Man's Jazz, but it isn't the primary focus of the novel.  Dowell says in the Author's Note that she didn't feel that she was the right person to write a book about Red Summer, but neither could she ignore the issue. Both Dessa and Irene take affirmative roles in trying to connect with and later assist the local African American Women's Club.  (Though I do think it likely that it would have been called the Colored Women's Club in 1919. "Serial killer" was another example of anachronistic vocabulary in this novel.  See Origin of the Term "Serial Killer" from Psychology Today.) The attitude of the white Savannah suffragette leader toward African American women seemed to imply that she firmly believed in segregation.

The case focused more on the band at a Savannah speakeasy.  It was mentioned that though there was no national prohibition of alcohol at that point, Georgia was a dry state where alcohol was illegal.   There were characters involved in bootlegging.

Another prominent issue was one involving the personal lives of a couple of the characters.  In reviewing The Poison in All of Us, Dessa's sexual identity was a spoiler, but Dowell outs Dessa in the description for this book.  So I guess it's appropriate for me to say in this review that there's lots of focus on lesbian relationship issues.  Theresa, Dessa's former lover, is the catalyst for Dessa and Emmie to be involved in this case since Theresa is a musician in the speakeasy's band.  I found Theresa very sympathetic.  Her inner strength made her my favorite character in this book.

It did seem to me that Dessa was far more dramatically prominent in Dead Man's Jazz than Emmie.  She was motivated by Theresa's involvement to take a more active role in the case and was going through a period of transition.  Emmie seemed to me to be a relatively marginal character.  I also found her less interesting than Theresa and Dessa, though I also very much liked Emmie's mother, Irene. There's a free prequel short story available to subscribers to Connie Dowell's newsletter in which Irene and her brother Charlie investigated a case when they were teens.  It's called "Unwound" and there's a download link for it after the Author's Note.   I think there's potential for an entire series about Irene and Charlie, but there's also potential for books focusing primarily on Dessa.

I was hoping for more focus on jazz  in Dead Man's Jazz since so many of the characters were musicians, but music was relegated to the background.   There were aspects of this book that I liked very much, but there were also parts of the narrative that I didn't find engaging. Yet I would definitely like to read more about some of these characters. 

      

The Suffragette Scandal--Some of The Best Romance Dialogue Ever!

I haven't reviewed a suffragette novel in 2018.  It's about time that I did.  Suffragettes are my favorite historical subject. I'm so glad that I had a chance to read The Suffragette Scandal by Courtney Milan.  This historical romance is causing me to revise my Romance Top Ten of All Time list.  I should have redone it when I read the Jewish Regency Miss Jacobson's Journey by Carola Dunn in 2016 (which I reviewed here) but I completely forgot.  This means that the two titles at the bottom of my top ten fall off the list leaving The Black Knave by Patricia Potter, a Scottish version of The Scarlet Pimpernel, rounding out the top ten. 

                             

The Suffragette Scandal was such fun!  The heroine of this romance, Frederica Marshall, known to her friends as Free, is the owner/editor of a woman's newspaper in England in 1877.    One of my favorite moments in the book is when she tells the hero Edward Clark that if he ever needs an exclamation point, he should come to see her because she has a whole box of them. 

She really does have a box of exclamation points.  Printing was done with moveable type.  So each page in a newspaper had to be set with little replicas of each letter and punctuation mark.  I'm borrowing from Free's box of exclamation points for this review.  I've used two of them.

It's often said that Jane Eyre is the grandmother of historical romance, but I think that The Suffragette Scandal is directly descended from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing where Beatrice and Benedick have some really great dialogue exchanges.  I was thinking of Benedick calling Beatrice "my lady disdain" while I read this book.  Free could easily be a second "my lady disdain".   Her agile tongue can outwit all the other characters.

Aside from the dialogue, there's also a dramatic plot with threats to the newspaper, arrests at a suffragette rally, blackmail and forgery.  Free's background is amazing because it includes all the risks she took to publish exposés of institutions and businesses that were harming women.

  Edward, the hero, is unconventional because he rejects the class driven values of Victorian society.  This makes him an outcast from his aristocratic family.  His life has been a hard one, but he's a survivor with many talents.  I loved him almost as much as Free.

In the Author's Note, Courtney Milan reveals what I suspected about the inspiration of her feminist heroine.  She is modeled on Nellie Bly, the 19th century American investigative reporter.  I've linked a Biography.com article about her life.  The image of her below is a public domain photo from Wikipedia. 

                         

Those who say that historical romances which contain feminist heroines are all inauthentic are wrong.  Nellie Bly really existed.  There were suffragettes.  Romance writers can draw on a rich heritage of strong women throughout history.   I give The Suffragette Scandal high marks for being a feminist romance that is hugely entertaining.

                            

Mistress Suffragette

My readers here know that I love to read and review novels about suffragettes.  This year  I've reviewed a YA mystery dealing with suffragettes here and a novel about a suffragette in South Carolina here.  Mistress Suffragette by Diana Forbes is a debut romance taking place in America during the Gilded Age.

I rarely read or review romances. I like unusual books, and romances tend to run to formula. So when I got the request for this review, I had to take a look at what was being said about Mistress Suffragette on Goodreads.  It sounded like there would be more emphasis on the context than I would normally find in a historical romance.  This is why I accepted a review copy, and I am now posting an honest review.

                     

There is a repeating pattern for all three of the suffragette novels I've read this year.  It seemed to me that the protagonists aren't as strong or as interesting as supporting characters.  I always find this disappointing. In my review of In The Fullness of Time by Katherine Stillerman which is the second review linked above, I speculated that the authors may think their protagonists are more relatable.

  When we first meet Penelope Stanton, the protagonist of Mistress Suffragette,  she's sheltered, spoiled and somewhat shallow.   She makes the occasional witty remark, but frankly I found her thoroughly unsympathetic.   I told myself she would improve when she stopped being under her mother's thumb.  She did improve.  She began to be more thoughtful.   Yet throughout the novel, Penelope ends up being swayed by those who surround her.  Some of her worst decisions could only be explained by the proximity of a strong minded individual over-riding her judgment.  She seemed to lack self-determination.

I preferred Verdana, a feminist activist that Penelope encounters after she leaves home.  Verdana's focus is on women's clothing reform to increase mobility.  Verdana is bold within the context of her period.  I liked her self-acceptance and genuine desire to help other women.   For much of the book, Verdana's cause is more central than women's suffrage.  Yet I enjoyed Verdana's expansion of Penelope's consciousness by introducing ideas and experiences that were foreign to her.

Speaking of new experiences, I thought that the scene in which Penelope learns to use a gun and becomes an instant sharpshooter unrealistic.   If you've ever tried to handle a gun for the first time, you know that there's a kick that will be unexpected.  It tends to throw people off.  Diana Forbes should have consulted with someone who knows guns when she was writing that scene.

I  was also irritated by certain character name choices. Names like Daggers or Stalker sound like mustache twirling villains in staged melodramas from the period that Forbes was writing about.  Real people weren't likely to have names like those. I felt that they were heavy handed and predictable.  They would be more appropriate for a satire.

So although there were characters and moments in Mistress Suffragette that pleased me, the book definitely did have flaws.  Judging from reviews, some readers may overlook those issues.  I am hoping that Diane Forbes learned from the experience of writing this book and will produce better work in the future.
                              

The Poison in All of Us--A YA Historical Mystery of a Murdered Suffragette

Connie B. Dowell, the author of  The Poison in All of Us, had me at the word "suffragettes" in the description.  I love reading about suffragettes.  It's one of the things that Tara and I have in common.   So I accepted a free copy of Dowell's novella in return for this honest review.

                                     

 The Poison in All of Us takes place in a small town the year before the 19th amendment to the U.S. constitution was ratified by enough states to make women's suffrage the law of the land.  The fictional town of Cora, Georgia was deeply divided on the issue. The women's club voting in favor of women's suffrage plunged this community into what seemed like an escalating spiral of violence which began with the murder of Miss Letty, the leader of the pro-suffrage faction.

The protagonist, Emmie McAllister  is a gutsy and outspoken young woman whose main ambition as the book opens is to buy a motorcycle.   Women riding motorcycles are as fascinating to me as suffragettes which is why Tara's Ride For Rights is one of my favorite books.  So Emmie on her Harley went a long way toward getting me to accept her penchant for taking foolish risks.  I just hope she'll grow out of that tendency over the course of the series.

Dessa, who joins Emmie in investigating the murder,  is practical, cautious and analytical.   There were numerous times when I wondered why Dessa wasn't the protagonist because she noticed things that Emmie didn't.  This made her a superior investigator.   On the other hand, sometimes someone who is investigating a murder needs to be brazen, to take actions that no one expects or to be able to respond quickly to events on her handy motorcycle.  So Emmie and Dessa would make a good team if they weren't antagonistic frenemies for a good part of the narrative.   Their relationship does evolve when Emmie learns more about what motivates Dessa.   I have to say that once Dessa's circumstances are fully revealed, I considered her a more sympathetic character than Emmie.

So what is "the poison in all of us"?  I believe that it's the prejudice that divided the town of Cora.   The animus against women's suffrage didn't end in Georgia for quite some time.  Dowell reveals in her author's note that Georgia didn't ratify the 19th amendment until 1970!

The Poison In All of Us is a suspenseful mystery that also makes strong statements about societal divisions and political corruption.

Suffragette: Review of a New Movie

I subscribe to an e-mail list for the Landmark movie theater chain.  Suffragette was mentioned as an upcoming movie in October. I got excited. Then the theater near  where I work put it on the marquee as coming soon.  I saw that announcement on the marquee every time I passed that theater after work. I love books and movies about suffragettes, so I've been very impatient.  It opened at that theater yesterday and I went to the first showing.

                               

Suffragette is a British film about the late 19th and early 20th century women's suffrage movement.  It's the first movie which contains scenes that were actually filmed in the Houses of Parliament according to the article about the movie on Wikipedia.

The central character is laundress Maud Watts played by Carey Mulligan.  Another important  character is Edith Ellyn played by Helena Bonham Carter.  There is also an appearance that amounts to only a bit more than a cameo by Meryl Streep as Emmeline Pankhurst.

As a movie I thought it was very good.  There was nice cinematography plus accurate period sets and costumes.  I thought that the performances were effective.   Americans will probably be seeing this movie on PBS eventually.  If my tone sounds less than enthusiastic, it's because I was disappointed.  I imagine that most members of the audience for this film probably wouldn't feel that way.

From a historical point of view,  I felt that Suffragette was both simplified and distorted.  It chose to focus on Emmeline Pankhurst's wing of the British suffrage movement, but the movie was supposed to be telling the story of working women involved in that movement.  Emmeline Pankhurst's daughter Sylvia was the one who actually spoke to working women.  Yet she only received a brief mention in this movie.  As a socialist and labor activist, Sylvia thought it was important to help these women and deal with their issues.  So she was more than an advocate for women's suffrage.  She cared about working women, and wanted to improve their lives.  She was also a pacifist who was opposed to Emmeline Pankhurst's violent tactics.  There's a brief biography of her on a Sylvia Pankhurst Website. 

 I first learned about  the role that Sylvia Pankhurst played in the suffrage movement when I read Suffragette Autumn, Women's Spring which I joint reviewed with Tara on Book Babe here. This novel by Ian Porter focused on a working class perspective of the Titanic disaster and the British women's suffrage movement.  I absolutely loved it and wholeheartedly recommend it.  Porter portrayed Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel as rather prejudiced against people of working class backgrounds.   So from the perspective of someone who read Porter's book, I thought it was extremely ironic that a movie that wanted to focus on these women would show us Emmeline Pankhurst as their leader, and virtually ignore Sylvia Pankhurst.

I was further disenchanted by Suffragette when I read the background on the real woman who supposedly inspired Helena Bonham Carter's character. Edith Ellyn, the fictional character who appeared in the movie, was apparently a doctor who worked in a dispensary in a working class neighborhood.  She was supposed to have been inspired by Edith Garrud who was one of the first women to teach martial arts. She ran two jujitsu dojos with her husband, and she taught jujitsu to a women's corps of body guards who fought hecklers at women's suffrage rallies.  There was a very short scene of Edith Ellyn teaching martial arts in the movie, but there was no emphasis on martial arts in the film.  Edith Ellyn was a likable character, but not especially interesting.  Edith Garrud was absolutely awesome! I would have loved to have seen her in Suffragette.

 Martial artist Tony Wolf wrote a trilogy of graphic novels about Edith Garrud and the women she trained to protect suffragettes.  The series is called Suffrajitsu. There was a recent article on BBC.com in which Tony Wolf discusses Edith Garrud at Suffragette Bodyguards which shows photos of her training of suffragettes.  He also informs readers about Suffrajitsu.

Here is the cover of the first Suffrajitsu graphic novel.

                                    

I really want to read this, but unfortunately my Kindle doesn't display color graphics.  So I'll have to wait until I have enough spare cash for the print version.

I'm not sorry that I saw Suffragette, but I probably wouldn't have rushed to the theater to see the very first showing if I had known that it wouldn't meet my expectations.  Perhaps one day there will be a movie about Edith Garrud.  I will be the first on line to see it. 

Votes for Vixens up for Book of the Month on TBR Pile

I'd appreciate the votes. Hoping many of you have read it. <3 font="">

My light f/f historical novella about suffragettes in NYC warranted a 5-star rating on TBR Pile and is up for book of the month. See the poll to the right of their website.

What they had to say:
"Freaking fabulous! This time period isn’t used often and that’s such a shame. The author did a stunning job with the details and language. It really made me feel like I jumped back in time. Elizabeth was a very well written character. She was someone I wanted to see succeed in life."

You'll have to visit their site for the entire review.

Thanks for all the support! 

Votes for Women

Today, I merely wish to share with you a collection of mine. I'm just fascinated by this time in our history, by the fight, the determination, the way women came together for one cause: the vote.

No matter who you vote for, don't forget you have a voice, and it wasn't easy getting there.

On that note, this is my Votes for Women postcard collection.

I still don't get the joke on the left one, bu t the right one is adorable and
they are both postmarked 1918. Cambridge Springs, Penn. *I think*

My favorite. Look at the little noose....

She ain't giving up!

Votes for Vixens Giveaway

This month I'm celebrating the release of Votes for Vixens.
I'm touring with Sizzling PR:

5 – Guest Blog @ Erotica for All

6 – Interview @ You Gotta Read

7 – Spotlight, Giveaway & Review @ Steamy Reading

8 – Guest Blog @ Sizzling Hot Books

13 – Interview @ Bonnie Bliss

14 – Spotlight & Giveaway @ New Age Mama

15 – Guest Blog @ Two Fantasy Floozies

19 – Guest Blog @ W. Lynn Chantale

28 – Review @ Rosa Sophia

AND giving away a lovely handcrafted necklace from Sassy Ginger Creations as well as a replicated Votes for Women postcard, unused. An extra bonus: a $5 Starbucks Gift Card so you can drink your coffee while you read your own ebook copy of Votes for Vixens.

All items will be sent to ONE lucky winner. Must be a follower of Book Babe and a U.S. resident. Thank you and good luck to all! 

Contest runs through the month of November.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Vote by Sybil Downing

If you haven't figure out what this book is about just from looking at the title... It's about this:

Alice Paul

In 1918, there was not only a war going on overseas, but also a war right here in the States, the war for women. Women wanted, deserved, demanded the right to vote. At the head of this war were two women, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns. They headed the NWP (Shame on you, ladies, if you don't know your women's history. National Women's Party for those that don't know.) These women arranged a picket line in front of the white house. Everyday, women stood out there with banners appealing to President Wilson. And they were arrested. They were thrown in Occoquan prison at one point and the heroine of this tale, Kate, a young girl from Colorado goes with them. Her and Lucy Burns are just two of the incarcerated women thrown in with cockroaches and rats and fed bug infested gruel for fourteen days while forced to work sun up till sun down.

Lucy in Occoquan

Though Kate was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, she stands up with the women of NWP and decides to join them after their 14 days is up. She defies her mother and father back in Colorado and goes from stuffing envelopes to organizing peaceful protests in parks, which gets her arrested again.

She is sent back to her hometown to convince the Colorado Senator who is also a close family friend to change the upcoming Amendment vote in the women's favor OR the NWP will get him out of office. This causes much friction with Kate's family. Meanwhile, there's a budding romance, but the fellow in Kate's sights may be spying on the NWP... and we can't have that...

BUT this chick does what she has to and hooks up with another chick, head of a union, Mary Daly.  I got to confess, at this point, the book got a bit dull (around page 210 or so) because as Kate runs around and visits the press and politicians, it gets repetitive.  I also seen the movie, Iron Jawed Angels not too long ago so I knew what was going to happen. 

I thoroughly enjoyed all the parts involving Lucy Burns and Alice Paul and I never get tired of reading about women's rights so I really liked this book. I had one minor quibble in the beginning. I found myself a bit bothered when the book points out that all people of color are valets or floor scrubbers. I know good jobs were not available to non whites back then, but the race issue not being a part of the book, I failed to see why that was pointed out.  It came off as a bit degrading and I found myself wondering if the heroine was a racist. After the first quarter, however, the issue never came up again.

Four stars and this was a library book.