Personal Reading
George Knightley, Esquire Book 1: Charity Envieth Not
George Knightley, Esquire Book 2: Lend Me Leave
by Barbara Cornthwaite
A delightful retelling of Jane Austen's Emma from Mr. George Knightley's perspective. It was faithful to Knightley's character as portrayed by Austen. Very well done and clean. Recommended for fans of Emma.
The London House
by Katherine Reay
A combination of modern romance and historical fiction. Spurred on by a former college friend's about-to-be published article about her aunt's supposed defection from Britain to run off with a Nazi lover, Caroline sets off from Boston to London to uncover the truth about her aunt and namesake and save her family's reputation. Along the way, she finds healing in her own relationships with her parents and her friend. A fascinating read, though a bit "steamier" than previous books by this author that I've read.
A Shadow in Moscow
by Katherine Reay
From the back book cover: In the thick of the Cold War, a betrayal at the highest level risks the lives of two courageous female spies: MI6’s best Soviet agent and the CIA’s newest Moscow recruit.
Vienna, 1954
After losing everyone she loves in the final days of World War II, Ingrid Bauer agrees to a hasty marriage with a gentle Soviet embassy worker and follows him home to Moscow. But nothing within the Soviet Union’s totalitarian regime is what it seems, including her new husband, whom Ingrid suspects works for the KGB. Inspired by her daughter’s birth, Ingrid risks everything and reaches out in hope to the one country she understands and trusts—Britain, the country of her mother’s birth. She begins passing intelligence to MI6, navigating a world of secrets and lies, light and shadow.
Moscow, 1980
A student in the Foreign Studies Initiative, Anya Kadinova finishes her degree at Georgetown University and boards a flight home to Moscow, leaving behind the man she loves and a country she’s grown to respect. Though raised by dedicated and loyal Soviet parents, Anya soon questions an increasingly oppressive and paranoid regime at the height of the Cold War. Then the KGB murders her best friend and Anya chooses her side. Working in a military research lab, she relays Soviet plans and schematics to the CIA in an effort to end the 1980s arms race.
The past catches up to the present when an unprecedented act of treachery threatens all agents operating within Eastern Europe, and both Ingrid and Anya find themselves in a race for their lives against time and the KGB.
This was a fascinating, page-turning, tear-jerking Cold War spy novel. The author's list of books for further reading about true stories that inspired elements of this novel just might derail my carefully planned to-read-list for the year. This is a good one to pair with The Berlin Letters by the same author and The Divine Plan by Paul Kengor.
A Portrait of Emily Price
by Katherine Reay
A typical novel by Katherine Reay in her modern romance genre: single protagonist in her late 20s struggling with work and relationships meets cute, sensitive guy who helps her work through her issues as she helps his family work through theirs, using lessons from literature to help them.
Martin Chuzzlewit
by Charles Dickens
Old Martin Chuzzlewit is rich, crotchety, and justly paranoid that all his relations are after his money. He is estranged from his grandson and namesake, young Martin Chuzzlewit. His only ally is an orphan girl he has taken under his protection to serve him, with the stipulation that she only benefits as long as he is alive. A long, winding tale of all the various characters who touch these two characters' lives. Contains an unflattering (but amusing to me) portrait of America. Dickens later visited America a second time (after the civil war and abolition of slavery), revised his opinion, and published an apology of sorts. When it was published, this book was not as popular as his previous ones. This led to financial difficulties, which led him to write A Christmas Carol to try to recoup some of the monetary losses. I enjoyed listening to the audiobook, narrated by Frederick Davidson.
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Bronte
Plain Jane grows up unwanted and mistreated by her aunt and cousins, is shipped off to a school for girls run by a miserly church man, and becomes a governess for a French girl who is the ward of mysterious Mr. Rochester. She falls in love with Mr. Rochester, but the wedding is called off at the last minute because of a dreadful secret he's been hiding. That's not the end of the story, but to tell more would be a spoiler. I really enjoyed the audiobook narrated by Alison Larkin (she also did all of the Austen novels).
Wuthering Heights
by Emily Bronte
The term "toxic love" is a popular term these days. I don't know when it was coined, but this novel is the perfect illustration of it. A boy of unknown origins (Heathcliff) is brought to the home of a well-to-do family in England and is belittled by most of them, except for the father and the daughter (Catherine). After the father dies, the boy is treated worse than ever. Heathcliff and Catherine are friends, but she rejects him and marries another. Heathcliff disappears for a while but returns with a plan to exact revenge on both families (Catherine's and her husband's). The long-time housekeeper narrates the story to a visitor. There is one character that speaks in such a heavy dialect, it's almost impossible to decipher (unless you have an annotated version that translates it). There are no protagonists in the story. All the main characters are despicable and impossible to sympathize with. I'm not sure what the appeal of this story is or why it is a "classic."
North and South
by Elizabeth Gaskell
From the library description: The novel follows the story of Margaret Hale in her move from the tranquil setting in rural southern England to the raw and turbulent northern town of Milton. Margaret takes an instant dislike to her new home and its people, including the handsome and charismatic cotton mill owner John Thornton whom she believes epitomizes everything unpleasant about the North. As events throw Margaret and Thornton together, the two spirited characters have to overcome their repressed physical attraction for one another and conquer prejudices of class and circumstance.
God's Smuggler
by Brother Andrew
The memoirs of a Dutch man who smuggled Bibles behind the Iron Curtain in the 1950s and 1960s. Very powerful. Content considerations: somewhat graphic descriptions of his life in the military prior to conversion to Christianity; one co-worker in a factory makes suggestive comments.
The Divine Plan
by Paul Kengor and Robert Orlando
After reading a couple of novels set during the Cold War, I was inspired to learn more about some of the key historical figures of the latter part of that time. This book discussed the relationship between Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, their faith in God, and their belief that God had a divine purpose for sparing both of them from assassination attempts. Fascinating to me, especially since I grew up during this time. As a kid, I certainly didn't understand the significance of many world events that I heard about on the news. So it was interesting to read more about it.
The Billion Dollar Spy
by David E. Hoffman
The subtitle is "A True Story of Cold-War Espionage and Betrayal." This was a fascinating account of the spy work done in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, focusing largely on Adolf Tolkachev, a Russian engineer who passed thousands of secret military documents to the CIA before he was caught and executed. While it delves deeply in Toklachev's work, it also gives much background about the developments of spycraft during this era and the people who worked with Tolkachev. A good companion to the novel A Shadow in Moscow by Katherine Rheay. The audiobook was excellently narrated.
Newbery Award Books
Up a Road Slowly
by Irene Hunt
This is called a "coming of age" story, as the main character grows up from up distraught seven-year-old to a seventeen-year-old high school graduate. After her mother's death, Julie and her brother are sent to live with her spinster aunt in the country. I couldn't figure out why the father was so uninvolved with his daughter or why the boy was sent to some boarding school after a year and rarely heard from again. Though Julie struggles against her aunt's "inflexibility," she does learn from her and grows and matures. As a child, her brother and a friend forcefully hold her down while another boy kisses her. She punches the boy in the eye, but she is the one who gets in trouble for hitting rather than the boys getting in trouble. One disturbing comment in the book was something along the lines of "a woman is never complete until she has loved a man." Later, Julie thinks she is in love with a handsome boy in high school (even though he's only using her to do his schoolwork) because she is lonely and longing for someone to love her. Her family doesn't approve, steps in to prevent him using her for other purposes, and finally offers some good advice. I don't recommend it.
Genre: Realistic Fiction. 1967 Newbery Medal winner.
A Wrinkle in Time
by Madeleine L'engle
Meg Murry, her little brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin travel through time and space to find and rescue Meg's father who has been captured by an evil force, known as IT, which seeks to bring everyone into a life of conformity and uniformness. Kind of a science-fiction/fantasy blend. We listened to the audiobook and my kids though it was kind of weird and aren't interested in reading anymore of the series. I disliked the blending of fantasy worlds with out-of-context Bible quotes; the author also equated Jesus with other "good men" like Buddha.
Genre: Fantasy. 1963 Newbery Medal winner.Middle-grade Fiction
Between Flowers and Bones
by Carolyn Leiloglou
This is the second book in The Restorationists series. See my review of the first book, Beneath the Swirling Sky. Cousins Vincent and Georgia are traveling through paintings again fighting the "distortionists" who steal and distort famous paintings. Georgia struggles with her attitude toward her cousin, as he seems to get more attention and praise from her parents and grandfather than she does. In the end, they learn to work together to accomplish their mission. This episode concludes nicely, but the story isn't finished yet. There's at least one more book planned in the series.
Read-Aloud
Juan Seguin: A Hero of Texas
by Rita Kerr
A brief introduction to Juan Seguin, who was an important figure in Texas history and the fight for independence.