The Treehouse

The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark

 

Not having read many fiction stories about India and having studied India at university I was keen to dive into this book. As with many books, the story is divided into two time periods and the book begins during 1947 and the lead up to Partition in India. Evie Mitchell has travelled to India with her young son Billy and historian husband Martin whose job it is to record the last days of British rule in India. Martin is a man much changed by his experiences in the Second World War and as a result their marriage is suffering and they are growing apart. Finding the disintegration of her marriage impossible to deal with, Evie throughs herself into endless bouts of cleaning and in doing so discovers a bundle of letters which have been hiding in the house since the nineteenth century, just shortly before the Indian Mutiny of 1857.

The letters were written by a young Victorian girl named Adela to her friend Felicity. the discovery of them plunges Evie into an obsessive search for the truth of the girls' story and what happened to them. Evie discovers little pieces of the story in various places - the local church, the local British club and hidden diaries of Adela's that she discovers. As she continues to search out the story of Felicity and Adela her own world continues to disintegrate as her husband becomes less able to cope with his war nightmares and reluctant to confide in her and as the days of British rule draw ever more swiftly to a close. 

Elle Newmark describes the sights and sounds of India both in the nineteenth and twentieth century in a wonderfully rich fashion. This, in addition to the mystery of Adela's and Felicity's lives and the closed book of Marin's war experiences and its effect on his marriage make this a compelling story which will satisfy fans of historical fiction. 

This book was provided by Transworld as part of their Book Club and is my 20th read for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

 

Black Swan Rising by Lee Carroll

This urban fantasy story by Lee Carroll is a great addition to shelves of paranormal literature. When New York jeweller Garet James stumbles into a previously unnoticed antiques shop during a sudden fog her life takes a different course altogether. She admires a box and is subsequently asked if she would take it home and open it up as it is sealed shut. A large sum of money is offered if she's able to perform this seemingly simple task. Garet and her father are in urgent need of funds and so that night Garet sets about opening up the box. Immediately her life begins to change and she embarks upon an adventure with vampires, fairies and all manner of supernatural characters. Along the way she discovers that she has powers of her own and also that the death of her mother, many years previously, is connected to the box. Her ultimate goal is to prevent the world being overtaken by the demons of Despair and Discord and to have a life with the man that she has fallen in love with.

Fans of supernatural fiction will find this book difficult to put down. The story captures the imagination from the first paragraphs with fabulous characters and quick paced action. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and am eager to read the second one which is called The Watchtower.Thanks to Transworld who sent this book to me as part of their current book club review programme. 

A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King

This is the second book in Laurie R Kings series about Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes and once again I enjoyed her writing very much. The story here sees Mary coming to the end of her degree at Oxford and reaching her 21st birthday and thus gaining her inheritance and freedom from the despised guardian Aunt. The blurb for the story is...

"After a tedious visit from relatives, Mary is looking for respite in London when she comes across a friend from Oxford. The young woman introduces Mary to the enigmatic Margery Childe, leader of the New Temple of God, a charismatic sect involved in the post-World War One suffrage movement, with a feminist slant on Christianity. Intrigued and curious, Mary begins to wonder if the New Temple is a front for something more sinister. When a series of murders claims members of the movement's wealthy young female volunteers, Mary, with Holmes in the background, starts to investigate, but events spiral out of control as the situation becomes ever more desperate, and Mary's search plunges her into the worst danger she has yet faced... "

The two books that I've so far read in this series both tend to start of a little slowly but perseverance pays off and not only is there a good mystery story going on but Mary's academic background provides for some very interesting reading at times as well. Holmes is irresistable as always and is portrayed in these books with slightly softer edges than normal, he's a little less brittle I think but his mind is, of course, as sharp as ever. Regular characters from the Conan-Doyle books pop in and out - Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft and a Lestrade detective although it is the son of the original. I find these stories irresistable and am currently half way through the third one!

This is my 19th book for the Historical Fiction reading challenge.

Soulless / Changless / Blameless by Gail Carriger

 

 

Alexia Tarabotti is a rather extraordinary woman living in an alternative Victorian England. Not only is she of the bluestocking variety of women, she is also soulless. In this alternate version of the nineteenth century, vampires and werewolves abound and are accepted by British society (it's a different matter entirely on the continent). Queen Victoria boasts regiments of werewolf soldiers who fight for the Empire and she relies upon the advice of her Shadow Council the leaders of which are a vampire and a werewolf. 

The first book sees Alexia investigating the appearance of strange, unmannered and untutored vampires along with the gorgeous, beastly Lord Maccon (a werewolf) - their relationship develops considerably over the course of the book but will they come out of the adventure alive? There's a book 2 and a book 3 so I'm not giving away too many spoilers when I say that they do! Book 2 sees them both travel to Scotland to Lord Maccon's old werewolf pack - danger is everywhere as more than one attempt is made on Alexia's life but the reason for the attempts are unclear as she investigates the mysterious loss of werewolf-ness that the Scottish pack are suffering from. In Book 3, Alexia travels to Italy in order to try and find out more about her Soulless-ness which was inherited from her father (now dead) and once again her life is in terrible danger as vampires try to kill her and Templar knights hold her prisoner.

I enjoyed these books and so did my daughter. They're a funny, light hearted take on the supernatural genre set in Victorian London, without the need for the X rating that's sometimes required for these types of story (and that's why my 14 year was reading them!).

These are books 16, 17 and 18 for the Historical Reading Challenge.