Tagged: paris
The Witch of Painted Sorrows by M. J. Rose
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Possession. Power. Passion. New York Times bestselling novelist M. J. Rose creates her most provocative and magical spellbinder yet in this gothic novel set against the lavish spectacle of 1890s Belle Époque Paris.
Sandrine Salome flees New York for her grandmother’s Paris mansion to escape her dangerous husband, but what she finds there is even more menacing. The house, famous for its lavish art collection and elegant salons, is mysteriously closed up. Although her grandmother insists it’s dangerous for Sandrine to visit, she defies her and meets Julien Duplessi, a mesmerizing young architect. Together they explore the hidden night world of Paris, the forbidden occult underground and Sandrine’s deepest desires.
Among the bohemians and the demi-monde, Sandrine discovers her erotic nature as a lover and painter. Then darker influences threaten—her cold and cruel husband is tracking her down and something sinister is taking hold, changing Sandrine, altering her. She’s become possessed by La Lune: A witch, a legend, and a sixteenth-century courtesan, who opens up her life to a darkness that may become a gift or a curse.
This is Sandrine’s “wild night of the soul,” her odyssey in the magnificent city of Paris, of art, love, and witchery.
[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free ebook as part of the blog tour in exchange for an honest review.]
A while back in May 2014 I was on the blog tour for M. J. Rose’s book The Collector of Dying Breaths and I absolutely loved it. The characters were fantastic, the writing was so beautiful it was hard to describe and the plot twisted and turned so much that I just had to keep reading. Needless to say I had high expectations for this stand-alone novel The Witch of Painted Sorrows.
My high expectations were absolutely exceeded and this book is one of the rare cases where the cover is just as good as the actual content. It gives away the atmosphere of the novel just wonderfully: beautiful but haunting. It’s so rare that an author can keep that atmosphere up throughout the novel even if it’s only in the background during some scenes but M. J. Rose certainly managed to do that. Throughout Sandrine’s journey we experience her hopes, her joys and her sorrows as her life in Paris goes from fairly regular to extraordinary. I’m not generally a fan of Gothic novels in part because few authors can keep up the haunted atmosphere but Rose definitely did. Through her beautifully descriptive writing I experienced everything from the bustling streets of Paris to the hidden corners of an ancient and seemingly cursed house. I know I keep using the word beautiful to describe her writing, but there really is no other word that does it justice. She’s able to evoke complex emotions in the simplest of phrases, to appeal to all your senses at once, particularly smell. I can honestly say that I’ve never had an author describe things so vividly before.
Sandrine is a wonderful main character. At first she’s a lonely woman escaping a loveless marriage and the knowledge that her father’s death was the fault of her hated husband. She’s lived a life of immense privilege but has never really known happiness until she comes to Paris to reconnect with her grandmother, a famous courtesan. When she meets her grandmother’s architect Julien and discovers that her grandmother intends to turn the Maison de la Lune into a mere tourist attraction, things start to get weird. First she discovers that she’s actually attracted to Julien and possibly even loves him, something she’s never experienced before in her entire life. Second, her grandmother starts acting weird when she learns that Sandrine is spending her time at La Lune’s house and tries to nip her growing attraction to Julien in the bud. Then, when Sandrine discovers the secret room in the maison, the tension starts to ratchet up in ever increasing notches. Throughout the novel Sandrine really grows as a character but when she discovers the secret of La Lune she really comes into her own, bucking society’s expectations of her spectacularly and asserting her independence. But there’s of course a more sinister reason behind Sandrine’s personality change that starts to spiral out of control as Sandrine spends more and more time in the secret room with La Lune’s paintings.
Simply put, The Witch of Painted Sorrows is a book you’ll never really be able to put down until you finish it. Not only does M. J. Rose know how to keep up the Gothic novel atmosphere, she also knows how to slowly introduce tension and gradually increase it until you’re unable to put the book down. You’ll think to yourself: “one more chapter, just one more” and then it’ll be three in the morning and you’re just finishing the book twenty chapters later. It’s incredibly hard to put down not only because her pacing is good and the suspense is constant but because the plot twists and turns quite spectacularly. Just when you think you know what’s going to happen in the end, Rose puts another twist in the plot. By the last few chapters I was fairly certain what the ending was going to be but the rest of the book was fairly unpredictable and I have to give her credit for that.
Basically, this novel will suck you in and not let you go until you’ve finished. You’ll be drawn in by the suspense and the beautiful writing but it’s the fantastic and dynamic characters that will keep you reading on into the early morning hours. It’s hard not to fall in love with a novel like this, that’s for sure. And that’s also why I can’t recommend this book highly enough: if the blurb has in any way intrigued you, go and buy the book on March 17 of this year. You won’t regret it.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
The Beautiful and the Cursed by Page Morgan
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
After a bizarre accident, Ingrid Waverly is forced to leave London with her mother and younger sister, Gabby, trading a world full of fancy dresses and society events for the unfamiliar city of Paris.
In Paris there are no grand balls or glittering parties, and, disturbingly, the house Ingrid’s twin brother, Grayson, found for them isn’t a house at all. It’s an abandoned abbey, its roof lined with stone gargoyles that could almost be mistaken for living, breathing creatures.
And Grayson has gone missing.
No one seems to know of his whereabouts but Luc, a devastatingly handsome servant at their new home.
Ingrid is sure her twin isn’t dead—she can feel it deep in her soul—but she knows he’s in grave danger. It will be up to her and Gabby to navigate the twisted path to Grayson, a path that will lead Ingrid on a discovery of dark secrets and otherworldly truths. And she’ll learn that once they are uncovered, they can never again be buried.
[Full disclosure: This was the second of two books I received in the mail from a mystery sender. As far as I am aware I am not under any obligation to review them for an author and as with every book I read, this is an honest review.]
Honestly, like The Commander’s Desire I’m still not really sure how I feel about this book. On one hand, I loved the unique mythos of the gargoyles and how they came to be gargoyles. On the other hand, the plot was rather predictable and at times oddly confusing. I could connect with some characters and not others.
I’ll start off with my favourite part: the gargoyles themselves. I’ve never been exposed to any gargoyle mythology outside of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney version) so this was a breath of fresh air for me. I feel like Page Morgan really thought out her gargoyles well and had a reasonably good explanation for how they came to exist and why they must protect their dwellings. The hierarchy within the gargoyles definitely makes sense if you look at the main types of gargoyles and grotesques in architecture as well. I really didn’t have any problems with the world-building in this one.
The time period is the turn of the century and the attitudes of the characters generally reflect it. At the same time, I felt like some of the things Ingrid did were far out of character and certainly were not acceptable for a young lady (no matter how disgraced) at the time. The way Page Morgan describes her setting immersed me in the history, but it was quite jarring to see such modern attitudes present in many of the characters. Other than that I really couldn’t spot any historical inaccuracies and the attitude problem requires only a slight suspension of disbelief.
My main problem with the book was the characters. The point of view wasn’t really consistent and sometimes I had no idea whose point of view I was reading. I wish the transition between characters was a little smoother because then I wouldn’t have been so confused when there was a lot of action going on. Some points of view even sound the same (the two sisters on occasion) so that really didn’t help the situation. Gabby was my least favourite character because she could be such a free spirit one minute and then have such prudish thoughts more in line with the time in the very next chapter. It’s that kind of inconsistency that annoys me.
All in all, I really can’t complain much about The Beautiful and the Cursed. It was relatively fast-paced and although it was confusing at times, I got the main gist of the plot. Would I read the second book in the series? Probably. I wouldn’t go out of my way to buy it, but if I found it in the used section I’d certainly give the rest of the series a chance.
I give this book 3.5/5 stars.
The Song of Troy by Colleen McCullough
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
In The Song of Troy, the bestselling author of The Thorn Birds recounts the tale of Helen and Paris, the immortal lovers who doomed two great nations to a terrible war. It is told through the eyes of its main characters: the sensuous and self-indulgent Helen; the subtle and brilliant Odysseus; the sad old man Priam, King of Troy; the tormented warrior prince, Achilles; and Agamemnon, King of Kings, who consents to the unspeakable in order to launch his thousand ships. This is an unputdownable tale of love, ambition, delusion, honour and consuming passion.
The Song of Troy is thus far my favourite book dealing with the Trojan War and I’m lucky I even found it at all because it was in the ‘Almost New’ section of my local bookstore. I almost never found it, except that the picture of Helen on the spine drew me to it. Yes, I judge books by their covers; I’m a horrible person. It’s nearly five hundred pages long but they read fast and before too long, it’s over and you’re left feeling sad. You probably know how the Trojan War ends (hint: the Greeks kick butt), but after falling in love with the characters over 500 pages, it’s hard to let go.
In any other author’s hands, each chapter being told from a different point of view would be annoying head-hopping. Yet in Colleen McCullough’s book, you don’t really get that sense. Each chapter is clearly labelled as being a new point of view and when each new person picks up the tale, they are moving the action forward, not merely recounting what happened to them up until that point. Of course characters like Helen, Odysseus, Achilles and Agamemnon get more page time than minor characters like Diomedes, Automedon and Nestor, but you get the sense that you know each character intimately.
What I like best about The Song of Troy is that we get behind-the-scenes explanations for each character’s motivations. Achilles, instead of being portrayed as a complete [expletive of your choice], we see how it was necessary to have a very public break with Agamemnon over—you guessed it—a woman. Odysseus is my favourite character in the whole book because he’s intelligent, crafty and politically savvy. He’s notorious for his irreverent, but utterly brilliant advice on how to win the war:
“You could, of course, starve them out.”
Nestor gasped in outrage. “Odysseus, Odysseus! There you go again! We’d be cursed to instant madness!”
He wriggled his red brows, unrepentant as ever. “I know, Nestor. But as far as I can see, all the rules of war seem to favour the enemy. Which is a great pity. Starvation makes sense.” (Pg 182)
This was my first Colleen McCullough novel and I’m most definitely looking forward to reading her famous series, The Masters of Rome. If The Song of Troy is any indication as to how much research she does, how well she plots novels and how sympathetically she portrays historical figures…well, let’s just say I will have stumbled onto my new favourite series.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
*Sadly, The Song of Troy is only available as a used book.
Reincarnation by Suzanne Weyn
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
It starts in prehistory. A young man and a young woman fight over a precious jewel. Their time together is short, but the reverberations are lasting.
Years pass. Generations pass. Centuries pass. But fate keeps drawing them together. Whenever their paths cross, there is that strong attraction. That unexplainable affinity. That feeling that they’ve been together before.
Theirs is a love haunted by history. From Egyptian slavery to Greek society. From Massachusetts witch trials to Civil War battlefields. From Paris in the 1930s to the present day. Circumstances will fight them…but a greater force will reunite them. Because some people are meant for each other—no matter how long it takes.
This is not a book you read for historical accuracy, fast pacing or an unpredictable plot. This is a book you read for guilty pleasure. And as long as you keep that in mind, you’ll enjoy Reincarnation.
Suzanne Weyn’s novel is by no means historically accurate. For example, when they are in ancient Egypt—she a singer named Tetisherti and he a Nubian slave called Taharaq—it made me snort aloud when he called Thebes ‘Luxor’, claiming that was its ancient Egyptian name. Bull crap. Thebes was called Weset. And the idea that Taharaq saw the pyramids when he was coming up from Nubia to Weset is enough to make an Egyptologist cry. And for reasons unknown, Suzanne Weyn calls Abu Simbel ‘Abu Simpel’ and Sekhmet ‘Sempkhet’. I have never, ever seen those names translated in such a way (even in the Wikipedia articles I’ve linked to). Utter nonsense. But again, this is not meant to be historically accurate.
One thing that actually made me enjoy Reincarnation was the characterization. All of the different reincarnations are three dimensional and sympathetic. The attraction between them was very real and the romance actually didn’t feel forced. There were certain traits that stayed with the characters in all of their lifetimes, but their circumstances in those different lifetimes were very different.
The plot is predictable, no doubt. Come on, you know how stories like this are going to end. However, because of the nice writing style and interesting characters, I actually enjoyed Reincarnation as a sort of guilty pleasure. It’s never going to win any literary awards (nor should it) but as long as you take it as what it is—light reading—you’ll enjoy it.
I give this book 4/5 stars.
Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
(Cover picture courtesy of The Halifax Reader.)
Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten-year-old girl, is taken with her parents by the French police as they go door-to-door arresting Jewish families in the middle of the night. Desperate to protect her younger brother, Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard—their secret hiding place—and promises to come back for him as soon as they are released.
Sixty years later: Sarah’s story intertwines with that of Julia Jarmond, an American journalist investigating the roundup. In her research, Julia stumbles onto a trail of secrets that link her to Sarah, and to questions about her own romantic future.
There are two words to describe this book and neither of them are particularly eloquent: meh and predictable. As much as I hate to say it, once you’ve read quite a few books on the Holocaust, they all start sounding the same. Sarah’s Key is an average book, but it is incredibly predictable and there’s nothing in it that really distinguishes it from other Holocaust-related novels. I stand by my first impression: meh.
Using a boring series of cardboard cutouts Tatiana de Rosnay tells the story of Julia, a modern-day American journalist living in Paris, and Sarah, a ten-year-old Jewish girl during the Holocaust. There is nothing exceptional about either of these characters and you don’t actually care about them until halfway into the novel because the first few chapters are basically information dumps that leave the reader slightly confused, especially in Julia’s point of view. I feel that novels dealing with the Holocaust should show some new insight into that horrific period in history or at least raise new questions about it. Sarah’s Key does neither of these.
The plot is slow but fairly consistent, so I’ll give de Rosnay that at least. But much like the characters, it is entirely predictable with nothing new added to it. This is partly because I have read quite a few novels on the subject and because every Holocaust cliché ever written is thrown at you in the course of the novel.
I give this book 2.5/5 stars.