The Widow's War by Sally Gunning

I wasn't sure if I'd like The Widow's War by Sally Gunning so I was pleasantly surprised to find myself hooked on it so quickly. I'd never written anything by Gunning before. She's done an awesome amount of research and it shows in setting, background information and even in the way the characters speak to each other.

Lyddie Berry is a whaler's wife in 1761 Cape Cod. Life has never been easy for her. She's left alone for months at a time while her husband goes to sea. Still, she's very happy with her life and with her husband. They loved each other very much.

One risk all whaler's wives face, of course, is losing their husbands to the sea and that's exactly what happens one January day. Life goes from being hard to nearly unbearable. Women in those times had little to no rights. For widows, it's even worse. In Lyddie's case, she goes from having some control of her life to none. According to law, she inherits only 1/3 of her husband's estate. The bulk of it goes to the next living male adult--in this case, it's Lyddie's controlling and thoroughly dislikeable son-in-law.

At first Lyddie tries to adjust to her new life but she is miserable. When she's encouraged to think and to make a few decisions on her own, though, she begins to break free of the repressive household she lives in. Her life becomes even more harsh and bitter but ... it's her life and circumstances now.

I was completely hooked early on as I mentioned and carried forward on a page-turning momentum to find out what happens to Lyddie. About halfway into the book, though, there were some circumstances that made me wonder if the whole point of the story had become blurred. I wasn't sure I liked the newest complications but I kept on going with the story to the end. Frankly, I think the story was much better without them but what are you going to do? Nothing's perfect.

All in all, it was a very satisfying read and I liked the ending very much. I learned a great deal in the best way possible--by enjoying a mostly well written story!

The Widow's War fit these challenges:

Nightmare House by Douglas Clegg

Do you remember an old Gothic TV soap opera called Dark Shadows? I loved the show and am still a fan, even after all these years. One of the main settings of the series was the very haunted Collinwood.

Harrow House of Nightmare House by Douglas Clegg makes me think of Collinwood. It's haunted and can be evil, has very interesting and "different" characters inhabiting it, and has rooms within rooms, secret passageways and rooms and everything you'd want to have in a terrifying old house. Yet, Harrow House is not centuries old. It was built by Justin Gravesend and added on with parts of buildings he'd admired. The additions prompted the villagers to nickname it "The Mad House".

If the house doesn't have the age factor, of having had many people die there and so on, why is it haunted by evil spirits? There's a reason and it's revealed more than half way through the book. By then, of course, I was completely hooked.

I wasn't so sure at first. The story is told, in one form or another, by Justin Gravesend's grandson, Ethan. Ethan is 29 when he inherits Harrow House from his grandfather and moves there in 1926. Almost immediately, "strange things are happening"! Ethan encounters some eccentric persons, living and ... not? He uncovers that evil secret that's been kept for years.

The house --or is it someone or something else? -- moves to control Ethan.

There's definitely a gothic feel to all of it. As I said, I was very hooked after a tentative start. The book switches from first-person diary form to third person and I wasn't sure how I felt about that shift. It doesn't matter. It's a fine ghost story.

The book falls into these book challeges:

I wanted to say a very grateful thank you to Imperfect Stepford Wife for giving me a "Beautiful Blogger" award. I feel honored!

Vinegar Hill by A. Manette Ansay

Vinegar Hill by A. Manette Ansay is one of Oprah Winfrey's book club selections. Although many are a tough read because of gritty reality or very serious themes, I usually enjoy them very much. Not this one. It was just too depressing and there wasn't enough light in it for me to enjoy it.

Ellen Grier and her family are forced (because of financial circumstances) to move in with her husband's parents. Was there ever a grimmer, more dysfunctional couple? I might say Frank and Marie Barone from TV's Everybody Loves Raymond but at least that couple was darkly funny. This couple made me want to run screaming in horror from the room whenever they entered the scene.

Ellen's husband is totally subservient to his parents and seems to have no ambition with getting out again and getting their own place. The two children are trapped, helpless, in all that misery and dysfunction. The one glimmer of hope is...will Ellen be able to break free of all this and free herself and her children?

I wondered how she got herself in such a fix in the first place. I could understand why the husband, James, was so screwed up. Look at his parents. But Ellen? She seemed to have a loving family. Maybe it was the religious rigidity of the times? Whatever it was, I found it grating.

Maybe it's because I am from a dysfunctional family. This one was just too screwed up for me.

Reading this book fit these challenges:

2010 Mixology

New Authors Challenge

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou is another book I wouldn't have been allowed to bring into my home when it was first published. My parents would have considered it a book written by a "trouble maker". Over the years, I heard many good things about it and even read an exerpt from it (the story about little Maya visiting the dentist with her grandmother) and I always wanted to get around to reading it. Now I have.

I've read a lot of books that have given me goose bumps because of the depth of man's inhumanity to fellow beins--most recently, Schindler's List. This was such a book too. Ms. Angelou wrote about her growing up years from the time she & her brother were sent to Arkansas to live with her grandmother (she was 3) until she was a teenager and living in California with her mother again. Racism is scary in the south but it's still pervasive and ugly in California, circa 1940. Some of the memories recounted made me sick.

There were some strong, positive figures here--the grandmother (Mama) and brother Bailey. There were others that just gave me the creepiest creeps, like Maya's mother's boyfriend and that horrid white dentist.

I was all ready to talk about all the examples of racism but then I realized there might be people out there who, like me, haven't read the book yet so I decided against it. This book definitely should be in the classics category (and it is) and I really don't get why it was banned from any library. I know the reason provided but it's ridiculous--my opinion. It's a great book.

Reading this book fit these challenges:

Mixology

New Authors

For the last two challenges, I don't get why I can't copy the links and pictures. I keep putting the html in my side bar and every time I go back to copy it, I only get the pictures, not the html. I'm not going to keep going back to those pages just to get the same information time and again so I give up. I'll just list the two challenges by name.

The Given Day by Dennis Lehane (spoilers)

Beware! For here there be spoilers...

I bought The Given Day by Dennis Lehane with a gift card because I have such respect for him. I thought Mystic was one of the very best books I'd ever read. One of the reviews for this book said that The Given Day "may be Lehane's finest work." Another compared it to John Dos Passos's U.S.A. That might be accurate but to be honest, I thought Mystic was and still the finest of Lehane's books.

It's set in Boston, circa 1918-19. The central focus is supposed to be on two characters, one black and one white. In the beginning, the chapters alternate between the two. When they finally meet, there isn't as clear a distinction and then new characters begin to have the limelight. The latter half of the book started to fall apart for me a little at that point, to be honest. Part of the time, I'd think: why are we reading about you? In one way, I could understand because these characters played a part in what happened later but ... maybe it would have been better to focus on them more from the beginning?

Anyway...

Luther Laurence is black and hails from the midwest. He and his long time sweetheart are expecting a baby and he's laid off. They have to move to her relatives' to make a new start and they marry. Unfortunately, Luther falls in with some shady characters and eventually has to make a run for his life. He goes from Oklahoma to Boston, Massachusetts.

Danny Coughlin is a dedicated young cop. His father's a police captain and his brother is an assistant district attorney. He was involved with Nora, who holds a sort of mysterious role in the family--not quite servant, not quite family. In the beginning, he is all about being a public servant and has no interest whatsoever in unions or other forms of "Bolshevism".

Luther and Danny meet and become friends because Luther ends up working for the Coughlin family.

I really liked Luther's character. He is basically a decent, hard working young man who just wants to do right for himself and his family. He's constantly battered by racial bigotry and a couple of really evil, ugly characters. The first one he encounters in Oklahoma. The second, a police lieutenant, is by far a particularly nasty villain. I shudder just thinking about the guy.

On the other hand, I didn't care much for Danny. I suppose he's just a reflection of his times but I found him to be something of a hypocrite and weakling at first. He is moony over Nora--but the reason they're not together is because of her "sordid" past. He wants a "respectable" woman. Nora was sold to her husband "in the old sod" at the age of thirteen. She abandoned him to run to America. It turns out later she also abandoned a stepson. Well ... so? But the way Danny (and later, the whole family) carries on about this "sordidness" made me sick.

The other issue I had with Danny was his feelings about the police union. He was such a "company" man his father and godfather trusted him to infiltrate "Bolsheviki" groups and report back to his superiors with information. Along the way, though, Danny learns that all protestors are not terrorists. He becomes active in the labor movement for policemen. All that in less than a year. Really? Amazing.

All of these characters and events are moving toward one big cataclysm. There are some very powerful scenes there.

Throughout all of this, there is a thread: Babe Ruth. Actually, it's pretty cool the way Lehane adds in snippets from Babe Ruth's story and his rise to fame.

All in all, a very good book that I would recommend highly to anyone who likes to read, especially historical fiction!

The Given Day fits into these reading challenges I signed up for: