Our story opens with 17 seventeen-year-old Fable diving for pyre, a sought after material that can be exchanged for coin. We quickly learn her back story. She is the daughter of the most powerful trader in the Narrows. Four years ago her mother drowned and the next day her father abandoned her on a island with nothing to help her survive. The island is notorious for meting out swift and extreme justice and Fable has managed to survive. She is driven to get off the island and finding her father. Fable enlists the help of a a very reluctant young trader named West to get her off the island. In one of the more harrowing scenes Fable is being chased by another resident of the island who wants her monetary stash and who will kill her for it. She desperately has to plead with West who does not want her on board his ship. Once on board we find out more about West, his crew and the world they all inhabit.
I loved this book for so many reasons. First and foremost I’m so glad we do not have a heroine who is destined to save the kingdom, world or what have you. Fable is just a girl who has had a rough life but is persistent and resourceful. The women are treated as equals in this world and we see examples just not through Fable but also Willa, one of West’s crew mates.
I also really liked the world itself. There is a lot of ship action and since I know little about ships I found it fascinating. The ships are the kind with sails, not your stodgy ships with engines. Almost everything in this world runs on trade and barter and I hope we get to know more about it in the next book. I’d also like to know more about the crew. We got glimpses but I need to know more about how Paj and Auster met. The action throughout keep me interested. I know some readers thought there wasn’t enough happening on the page but what did happen kept me going.
I have to say I was so happy that I read this right before the sequel came out as I was shrieking at the end of the book. It has quite the cliff hanger. I do not think I could have waited a year.
Recommended if you like sea faring stories with inclusive characterizations.
A Murderous Relation is the fifth in The Veronica Speedwell series. For those of you unfamiliar with the series they are historical and take place in Britain in the late 19th century. Veronica is a butterfly hunter and seeker of scientific inquiry. Stoker is a natural historian and long time collaborator. The series do, I think, need to be read in order. Veronica Speedwell continues to be such a comfort read and this one did not disappoint.
For those of you who are familiar with Veronica in this outing she is reluctantly pulled into an investigation regarding the Prince of Wales who may have created a possible scandal by giving a piece of jewlry to a woman who runs a club to indulge individual’s sexual appetites. As a sort of background accompaniment to the main plot are the Jack the Ripper nurders.
I have to admit I thought Veronica’s investigations might have more to do with the Jack the ripper murders but they focus instead on retrieving the jewelry piece as well as her subsequent kidnapping so I was a little disappointed with the book initially.
However, Ms. Raybourn does her usual fine job in painting sympathetic characters from Madame Aurore the hostess of the club to some of the people living in poverty who help them. It may be a bit of a minor spoiler but Veronica and Stocker do meet one of the ripper’s victims and she is treated with a respect rarely seen in most written narratives of the victims. She also adds just enough history to make the story feel more real without bogging down the story with too much. Stoker and Veronica are, as always suburb, witty, quarrelsome and resourceful. Some of our supporting characters are sidelined- Poor lady Wellie is unconscious for most of the book but we meet Prince Eddy and Mr. Pennypacker so all’s well. For those of us who’ve been waiting quite some time we got the ending we needed and deserved. Let’s just say a happy dance was done
I would also be remiss in not mentioning Angele Masters fine narration. I’ve always admired her ability to make her men sound like men without its being forced and her performance here is without flaw.
What I’m reading this week
I’m about halfway through Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell and this may well be this yeas favorite literary novel. I’ve also just started on audio If We Were Villians. I think I may need to also get a print copy of this due to all the Shakespeare quotes.
Something to think about
I rarely discuss anything that might be of a political bent on the blog but there were two shootings this week, one of which is in a town I know well, and I’ve begun to wonder if entertainment venues can be held accountable in some way.
It is a quandry for me as I recognize that a movie shouldn’t be blamed because someone saw it on the screen and then decided to imitate the act because we are all supposed to know it is fantasy, correct? Other countries seem to be able to view our exported hyper violence and not act on it and I do not understand why the U.S. in particular does have this problem.
On the other hand I think women in particular have been portrayed in a certain way for so long that it has been ingrained in the culture. Asian women in particular have been hyper sexualized as the ideal fantasy partner but media, including books, also portray women as victims over and over again. I don’t think romantic suspense could exist without the women being in jeopardy. Have we reached a sort of norm in terms of consuming violence towards women? Think of the shows that trade on violence year after year – Criminal Minds comes to mind but in some ways so does Law and Order SVU.
I do think the publishing world has begun to turn the page in terms of depicting how a woman looks physically especially in the young adult and romance areas. While we still get plenty of slender white women in YA but we are beginning to see women of different sizes as being normal and romancelandia is also taking up the mantle. Here is hoping that as more women on the page begin to resemble wives, mothers, lovers that it may have an impact overall.
On a final note I see I still have not mastered wordpress and am not loving the odd mix f italiced versus plain text, sigh. Bear with me.
Eclectic reads for an Eclectic Frump 