"Her Royal Spyness," by Rhys Bowen

FM’s ratings:

1. Premise 7
2. Prose 9
3. Plot 8
4. Characters 8
5. Overall 8

Comments (optional - but try to keep it under 3000 words!)

A lot of fun – but the premise isn’t really the premise. According to the title, this story is about a royal personage (Duke’s sister; 34^th in line for the throne in England) who is asked by the Queen to spy on another royal personage. This does occur, but only as a side-plot. The actual plot is a murder mystery involving the murder of a blackmailer who is trying to capture the “spy’s” birthright, namely the ancient Scottish castle that her brother inherited – in what is apparently a perfectly legitimate claim! Has the author confused herself? No matter. The witty prose and highly appealing heroine more than make up for the confusion. The prose is, in fact, so lively that we forget to pay attention to any weaknesses in plot and premise. There is a lot of incidental information about how the royal class lived in 1930’s England, including the fact that our heroine is so used to having servants to do things for her that she never learned how to light a fire in the fireplace! But told from the royal perspective, we don’t feel any disdain for this dependence on “The Help.” A unique kind of story that makes us want more.

“A Prayer for the Damned,” by Peter Tremayne

FM's ratings:

          1. Premise 8

          2. Prose 8

          3. Plot 9

          4. Characters 10

          5. Overall 9

Comments (optional - but try to keep it under 3000 words!)

Fidelma impresses the hell out of us once again! Her technique in solving very difficult murders is beautiful to behold. Since the setting is 668 A.D. in ancient Ireland, she doesn’t have the advantage of fingerprinting, DNA analysis, and a host of other modern-day tools to work with. Her investigations rely on asking the right questions of the right people in the right order and in the right tone of voice. She’s playing a game of chess, so to speak, and in this novel she even compares her approach to such a game; one played in that time and place known as brandubh, and similar to chess. Tremayne knows the period well, having studied it academically, and sprinkles anthropological references throughout the text, complete with the Celtic words that were used for them. This is done so tastefully that it never gets in the way; indeed it adds a spice to the narrative that enhances the atmosphere of time and place. Historical novels don’t usually appeal to me, but these are done so well that I keep coming back for more.

Here’s the September line-up!

"Burnt Offerings," by Laurell K. Hamilton [9-2-17]

"School Days," by Robert B. Parker [9-9-17]

"One Shot," by Lee Child [9-16-17]

"Murder Sends a Postcard," by Christy Fifield [9-23-17]

"Lullaby," by Chuck Palahniuk [9-30-17]

(As always, if there are any books you’d like to recommend for next month, please do so. Also, if you have already read a book on our previous lists, you are invited to send your ratings and or comments for that book!)

"Moods,” by Louisa May Alcott

FM's ratings:

1. Premise 4
2. Prose 7
3. Plot 6
4. Characters 6
5. Overall 6

Comments (optional - but try to keep it under 3000 words!)

“Under the above title [Moods], Miss Alcott has given us her version of the old story of the husband, the wife, and the lover. This story has been told so often that an author’s only pretext for telling it again is his consciousness of an ability to make it either more entertaining or more instructive; to invest it with incidents more dramatic, or with a more pointed moral. Its interest has already been carried to the furthest limits, both of tragedy and comedy, by a number of practised French writers: under this head, therefore, competition would be superfluous. Has Miss Alcott proposed to herself to give her story a philosophical bearing? We can hardly suppose it. We have seen it asserted that her book claims to deal with the ‘doctrine of affinities.’ What the doctrine of affinities is, we do not exactly know; but we are inclined to think that our author has been somewhat maligned. Her book is, to our perception, innocent of any doctrine whatsoever.” Thus wrote Henry James, in 1865, and I think he pretty much nails it. It’s ironic to me that when I tried to read one of his novels, I found it so tedious that I didn’t bother to finish it; extremely rare for me. I struggled to finish this one, it became so pedantic and trite near the end. The prose is mostly very good by Victorian Era standards, but took a maudlin, overwritten turn for the worse in the last few chapters. The same is true of the characters, who marginally held my interest for most of the first 80% of the book, but gradually became more stereotypical and wooden. Someday I might read Alcott’s most beloved novel, “Little Women,” having read “Little Men” already. But I’m certainly not in any hurry to do so.

“The Last Olympian,” by Rick Riordan

FM's ratings:

1. Premise 8
2. Prose 9
3. Plot 9
4. Characters 10
5. Overall 9

Comments (optional - but try to keep it under 3000 words!)

This is the 5^th and final book in a beautifully realized series. Yes, the series is written for “Young Adults” (I volunteer to be a young adult!) but the quality of writing and especially characterization here is as good as any to be found in “adult” literature. The humor is the spice that makes the recipe; a spice that other more universally acclaimed fantasy series, such as “Lord of the Rings” or “The Chronicles of Narnia” could have used some of. Would those works have been the same with such humor added? No. They might not have been as “weighty,” but they wouldn’t have been as tedious, either. The humor, along with the pace of this series is perfect. Riordan is a writer of the highest level in my opinion (and his “adult” books are just as good). The bonus feature of these “Percy Jackson” novels is that the reader is made familiar, or at least much more familiar with the panoply of the Mythological beings, creatures, and stories covered in any course on Mythology. (Riordan has spent time as a Middle School teacher covering just such material!) The hero, Percy Jackson, is one of the most admirable heroes in Young Adult literature, and the rest of the cast is just as convincing. For my money, if a young reader had to choose between the Harry Potter books and this series, I would recommend this one!