P'tit Cadeau, by Anel Viz

P'tit Cadeau

Anel Viz

Ben is an artist on sabbatical from the American college where he teaches. He has a year in France and wants to fill hi sketchbooks and canvases with the remarkable sights he can find in the south of France and in Italy. He did not expect that one of his favorite subjects for his art would come to mean so much to him, his new model and lover, Jean-Yves Cadot.

The two men meet in the small mountain town of Sainte-Repouze where Jean-Yves' father took the family after a scandal involving a priest at the young man's school in Dijon. The young man, now in his early twenties, lives with his spiteful and bitter sister who considers him simple-minded and a naughty child. Ben befriends him, discovers he is anything but simpleminded but very possibly too childlike for his own good. His relationship with Jean-Yves grows as he paints and draws him, in works like the cover painting, "Boy Wading". He resists his growing attraction to him, believing the young man is heterosexual, but they eventually become quite ardent lovers. The novel chronicles their relationship as Ben sets Jean-Yves on the road to self confidence and achievement.

I could not believe how often my emotional reaction to the story changed, right along with the narrator Ben's. At first I was charmed by Ben's kindness and Jean-Yves sweetness, but I soon saw how the complicating factors in their couplehood, namely Ben's fear of falling in love with someone he would be forced to leave to return to the states, I became just as anxious as Ben and Jean-Yves. From there I saw how dependent the young man was and felt the desperation that itself was replaced by a sneaking suspicion that he was more manipulator than dependent. Separated for years, I started to long to know how Jean-Yves was coping, how he was living his life, and was as anxious as Ben to see him again. Along with the artist narrator I found him strong, talented, and more appealing than ever. I wanted to keep him, as did Ben.

What this boils down to is, quite simply, a real relationship. Romances are about ups and downs, yes, but not usually ones that mirror the lives of us mortals. Ben and Jean-Yves are as changeable, as likely to make mistakes, as likely to surprise themselves and others, and as unpredictable as any other two humans on the earth. No two people will hold the same roles nor relationships either, the give and take being the norm, unlike in much fiction. I found this powerful, so much more satisfying than books where not only the story is fiction but the types of people in them as well. Viz is a wonderful writer, as neat, both economical and eloquent and satisfying as I have read.

Something I noticed in one of Viz's other novels, The City of Lovely Brothers, that I found in P'tit Cadeau I was charmed to find here as well. The fictional author/narrator breaks into the recounting of the story to let drop little hints as to future incidents or situations. Just enough to tweak your curiosity but not to give anything away. This could be tiresome, but in Viz's hands it's like a sprinkling of unexpected spice in the chef d'oeuvre. Ben mentions , for instance, that although at the point in the narrative it looks like the two men are splitting forever, Jean-Yves "still" enjoys being Ben's model years later. How tantalizing! You find yourself even more curious to see how that comes about. No predictability, just a flash of something sparkling off in the distance.

Two other elements I appreciated. Jean-Yves is not just gay. He is naturally disposed to making love to women, but he loves Ben, who happens to be male. To my mind, love and sexuality are far too fluid to define narrowly, but at the same time love you have for a special person is fixed. For Jean-Yves his love and lover is Ben. He enjoys sex with him because he loves him, and that is in spite of horrible abuse as a child. I also liked how Viz introduces the case of gay marriage through introducing his characters so the reader will come to understand in a visceral way what the lack of marital rights would mean to two people of either gender who love each other. That is how you turn "them" into "us".

The sex. There is no question that one of Viz's gifts is writing erotic scenes without narrowing the novels he writes to simply erotic novels. His sex scenes are hot, and though some might call them unduly graphic, I don't agree. I don't see why one wouldn't want to experience all the joys a loving couple share. It is just too bad many readers who could gain so much from the novels will be put off by the sex.

I read few contemporary novels, but the sheer pleasure of this expertly crafted love story was worth getting lost out of time for its duration. I bought it for my Kindle 3 and thank the author and the publisher, Silver Publishing, for enabling text to speech so I could read it.

Requiem: The Fall of the Templars, by Robyn Young

Requiem: The Fall of the Templars

Robyn Young

This is one big honkin' story, part three of the Brethren trilogy  about a secret society within the Knights of the Temple of Solomon that had as its ideal peace between Christians, Muslims and Jews.  The first volume, Brethren, which I have not yet found in an accessible format so have not read, sets up the story of Will Campbell, his conflicts, his enemies and his love.  The second, reviewed on this blog, Crusade, was all about how the central players worked to keep it all together and wound up tearing it all apart, the fall of Acre  as the final end to the dream of the Crusades for Will and for everyone.  With The Fall of the Templars Young shows how these death throes ultimately lead to the dissolution of the Knights Templar, no matter how the disillusioned Will tries to keep that institution's demise meaning the deaths of the knights he cares about and respects.

In The Fall of the Templars we pick up Will Campbell's story some uears after the fall of Acre.  He has dropped his daughter Rose off with the King or France and gone traveling with the new Grand master to fund raise for yet another Crusade.  He is way disillusioned, and when he gets back to Paris he discovers that in spite of all his nastiness, the templars and even the Anima Templi, the secret society, are making nice to Edward I.  He throws a Templar tantrum and quits and goes to see his family in Scotland.  While he is there the English dispossess said family, so he joins old Braveheart in the woods to fight as a guerrilla.  His groom, Simon, finds him, and they go back to Paris, Will somehow managing to stay out of the Templar's radar though he is living at court and doing all kinds of missions for the king.  He gets mixed up with dirty tricks that include murdering a couple popes and is on the spot when Phillip and his evil minister, who hates religion, get going on a conspiracy to get rid of the Temple entirely so they can get all the Templar's stuff.  No matter how he tries Will cannot prevent the inevitable -- we knew that, but we don't know if their end will also be his.

The main problem I found with Book 2 I found here as well.  Too many unlikely subplots that tended to end with a "so what was that all for?" feel about them.  How Young managed to see William Wallace in all this seems to boil down to "well he was running around at the same time, hating Edward I too, so let's make him Will's focus for a while."  And again, you wonder what that was supposed to lead to.  Another problem is that Young leaves out entirely a rather significant element of King Phillip le Bel's  reason for wanting to see the end of the Temple historically, and that is the fact he owed them a ton a of money and wanted his debt canceled.  Finally you could probably subtitle this novel "Will Campbell, Escape Artist" because he constantly gets captured only to escape or be rescued by the Wallace Ex Machina of the moment.

That is not to say I did not enjoy the book.  At times I wondered how it was going to get to the end that history assured me would come, but the characters were sufficiently compelling to keep my attention, especially as the tension built in Part III.

I bought this novel in Kindle format to listen to on my Kindle 3.  I thank the publisher and author for enabling text to speech so I could read it.  I still want to read Brethren, though by now it will seem like reading "Templar Babies".

Lessons in Desire, by Charlie Cochrane - A Cambridge Fellows Mystery

Lessons in Desire


Charlie Cochrane

A Cambridge Fellows Mystery

I just love these novels.  I think I may actually be addicted.  I read, and reviewed, the first of the series, Lessons in Love,  and fell head over heels in love with the two university dons cum sleuths, Jonty Stewart  and Orlando Coppersmith, whom I find just so familiar and comfortable that I am quite at home in their presence.

It is the couple's first holiday together.  Of course, almost as soon as they arrive in the Channel Islands and check into the charming seaside resort, there is a murder.  A cantankerous old man with a boatload of enemies is found dead, having had his brain stem punctured by a long thin object.. like a hat pin, a knitting needle, or perhaps a tie pin?  The first suspect is his son, who comes back from making an unfortunate pass at Orlando, to find Dad quite dead.  Jonty wants to help him clear his name, much to Orlando's hurt feelings and opposition  Thee is the usual crew of suspects, and if I don't give this novel five stars... not giving stars at all makes that easy... it's because the solution to the mystery is a bit hard come by in my opinion.

The other, arguably more central story, in all of these novels is Jonty's and Orlando's struggle to overcome social biases and threats to realize their growing love for each other.  In this novel it is a chance for the men to have some time in private, and Orlando's skittishmnes puts stress on that effort.  Jonty at the same time is impatient for the ultimate intimate expression of love between two men, which Orlando is afraid of.  It will take a lot of soul searching and trust for that to come about.

One thing I enjoy in these novels is the chance to laugh out loud.. several times per volume.  The author.. and her characters.. are full of clever wit.

I bought this book on Kindle and thank the author for ensuring it is text to speech enabled.  I went right out and bought the entire series after I finished this one.

Moon in Leo, by Kathleen Herbert

Moon in Leo

Kathleen Herbert

Alchemists, gypsies, Puritans, sleep-walkingd women, clandestine Catholics, and necromancers...  what's not to love in Kathleen Herbert's Moon in Leo?

Seriously though, this novel combines a look at an intriguing time in history with compelling characters and thrilling intrigues.  The time and place is Restoration England.   The king, namely Charles II, is back on the throne, spending the nation's money on wine, women, and song, and those who were happy to see the tail end of Cromwell and his Roundheads are ready to find someone else to blame for national woes.  When a group of conspirators decides the unpopular and illegal Catholics would be a nice diversion for violence, a family with a long history of being oppressed for the occult beliefs is caught in the middle.

Rosamund is looking forward to the return of her brother Stephen, hoping they can now settle down in the mystical marriage required of great alchemy.  But Stephen doesn't want this any m ore, so Rosamund is drawn to another alchemist she meets, she believes accidentally, who appears to share her dreams, a certain Mr. Challis.  It is not long before she begins to suspect he has dreams far wilder and ambitious than her desire for peace on Earth, good will, well you know the drill.  Meantime poor Stephen is dragged off to gaol in Lancaster for treason.  Fortunately for him he has met and fallen in love with a Catholic woman, who gets her friends to spirit him out of his cell.  Rosamund, knowing she can only wait to see if the plan succeeds, goes off to Challis's chalet where she finds him ensconced with an odd lot of people who seem to have something cooking.  Challis has pull on her of a definite occult kind, and one of his earlier victims is wandering about the place in a trance that finally gets through to Rosamund's brain.  So she takes off, eluding Challis's searches, worldly and otherwise, only to run into a cad of a fellow she met once and didn't approve of but now needs his help.

I will be honest and admit I knew precious little of what was going on with the average English person during the Restoration.  I am afraid one demerit of historical novels is their tendency to focus on nobility too much of the time, giving the reader an unrealistic view of everyday life.  Rosamund and her family are hardly average, but they have enough distance from Court to give one a sense of what was really going on.  The paranoia about plots and insurgencies exacerbated by a king who was basically asking for it, was revealed in this novel while the paranormal romance is entertaining the reader.

I have not read all that many romances, but I think Moon in Leo has the requisite themes, the smart, spunky heroine who nonetheless needs rescuing, the model gallant fella who turns out to be sinister as a ll get out, exciting escapes, unforeseen death, exotic helpers, the rake who turns out to be Mr. Right, and all of it being wrapped up in a heritage of turning base metals into gold just adding spice to.. well.. spice.  It was a wonderful introduction into the genre for me.   It seems to me that the novel combines a nice little historical romance with some unexpected occult twists.  It sure worked for me.

The publisher supplied me with an accessible digital text copy of the book so I could read it on my Kindle 3 and write this review.

Circle Cast, by Alex Epstein

Circle Cast

Alex Epstein

Circle Cast has the intriguing description, "the lost years of Morgan le Fay". If you saw the movie, Excalibur, you can't forget the scene when, in the guise of Tgraine's husband, Gorlous, Uther Pendragon enters her chamber and rapes her, while an eerily perfect little Morgan sits in a corner and watches it happen. Did you ever wonder what happened to that little girl between then and her reappearance in King Arthur's court? This is that story, as imagined by Alex Epstein.

It doesn't start with that shocking scene but earlier, when the eleven-year-old Morgan, then named Anna, comes to a gathering of the lords with her father and mother. There Uther sees Tgraine and the proverbial die is cast. When Gorlois takes his wife and daughter home to Tintagel pursued by Uther, we learn a bit about the father-daughter relationship on which hangs the tale of Morgan's desire for revenge against his murderer. Ygraine sends her away to save her life, over the sea to Ireland.

There the newly renamed Morgana spends time as a slave, later lives in an early Christian monastery, marries a handsome young chieftain, and finally leaves him to take her revenge back in Tintagel. The revelations there have a shocking impact on her. Epstein does an excellent job writing a growing girl. This is a very dark book, with little joy for the characters or the reader. It is a well informed story of the legendary time, gives promise of a sequel about Morgan and Arthur.

That's the rub. The book feels like half of a novel. The resolution at the end is only partial, leaving out any contact with the Merlin character who seemed to this point to occupy much of the heroine's attention and drive. Given how much she gave up, and more poignant to me that she forced her chieftain husband to give it, I found that unfortunate. Epstein follows the novel with an epilogue that undercuts whatever closure the reader gets with the story. I really think this novel and its sequel should have been published as one book. Splitting longer novels into two shorter ones, a small trend with some ebooks, is definitely a bad idea. I for one do not find myself wanting to go looking for the second if the first left me feeling unsatisfied.

Nevertheless I thought well of how the author showed Morgan's development into the she-monster we all know and secretly admire. The experiences she undergoes from the day Uther goes after her father, through disappointment and slavery, the bout with Christianity, and her growing power as Connell's wife, we see a quite creditable transformation into the woman. One issue the book confronts that I thought was masterful is how Morgan dances back and forth between her different religious and magical beliefs. I could identify with her intellectual and spiritual dialectic, and though at one point I thought I detected a Christian bias, I was dispossessed of this notion as I saw not only the druids discredited but then the Christian leaders. Morgan is left with her direct and tangible relationship with earthly magic, turning away from other's religion, in the true sense of the word, to what she knows to be true herself.

The author supplied me with a copy I could listen to on my Kindle 3 in order that I could review the novel.

Princes of Ireland, by Edward Rutherfurd - The Dublin Saga

Princes of Ireland Edward Rutherfurd The Dublin Saga This installment of Edward Rutherfurd's eon-busting novels took two volumes to tell it all. This is the first of the two, "princes" referring to the time where at least some of Ireland had its own rulers, while the second novel, Rebels of Ireland, covers the period from the complete domination by England to independence for 26 of the 32 counties in 1945. Princes of Ireland starts with a tale from before St. Patrick's time based on the tale of the elopement of Diarmuid and Grainne, who flee the angry King of Tara to travel alone throughout the island. Rutherfurd throws in a little Cuchullain here too, with the hero having to fight his dearest companion to the death. You run into another aspect of the Cuchullain stories here too with the metalsmith who shares the ancient hero's trick of shutting one eye and making his open eye seem huge. This is one of the typical Rutherfurd family traits you recognize in every generation, along with the heroine of this first story line and her red hair and green eyes. In its transit through history to the period when Henry VIII destroyed the power of the Earls of Kildare and put Dublin, if not Ireland as a whole, firmly under his thumb, you run through St. Patrick and the spread of Christianity, the coming of the Norsemen and Brian Boru at the Battkle of Clontarf in 1014, through the invasion by Strongbow and Henrrty II pulling one on the Irish Church, to the growth of the Ascendancy families. In each you meet another family, the descendants of the Norse Harold with the family blue eyes, the wild and sexy O'Burnes from the Wicklow Mountains, the Walshes, descendants of a Welsh mercenary with their "soldier's jaws", the Doyle's who take their slight disreputable appearance from a Danish ancestor, and the Tidy family with their modest expectations and pointed beards.n every era these families' stories weave through each other's, telling the story of Ireland through all the stories of the peoples and the people who were part of it. The stories concern a woman's sense of abandonment when her family members find fulfillment elsewhere, a blood feud from a past generation and a man in love with a woman constrained by prejudice, a Welsh soldier who must use people to get ahead, a simple man who is easily tricked into leading the authorities away from smugglers, a nearly fatal paranoia about two women's dealings with the same man, and a bitter humiliation of a husband avenged. It is inspiring to follow these generations but it is also depressing as all get out. You find yourself fully involved in a character's story only to skip ahead a hundred or more years to find his or her descendants utterly ignorant of the ancestor. It makes one wonder if anyone ever really makes his or her mark on the landscape. One of the flaws of this novel helps ameliorate this depressing factor, and that is that few of the characters are all that appealing or sympathetic. I doubt Rutherfurd intended this, but as my husband, Jim, and I listened to the audio we found not having someone to champion or at least approve of rather unsatisfying. Another result of this is that some of the stories seem to go on and on with quite a bit more detail or complications than were strictly necessary. I actually read this novel and its sequel some years ago before I started this blog, and one thing I enjoyed is finding that I knew more about some of the subtleties thanks to all the Morgan Llywellyn novels I've read. This is also one of those books where you get to a plot line and think, "Oh yeah! So this is where I read that." I remember liking the second novel, Rebels of Ireland, much more, though this is not surprising since I am drawn to Ireland's rebellious periods and personalities. I hope Jim likes it better too. he ought to, since I play songs about so many of the events in it on my Celtic radio station that he practically knows it all already. We listened to the audio version of this novel with its superior narrator on my Kindle.