A Poisoned Season by Tasha Alexander

This is my third Tasha Alexander book and I loved it.  I read almost the entire thing last night and have spent a good portion of today thinking about it.  It's been a long time since I couldn't put a book down.  This book is part of Alexander's Lady Emily series, the third book behind And Only to Deceive and A Fatal Waltz. 

Lady Emily Ashton, finally out of mourning for her murdered husband, Viscount Phillip Ashton, is in the process of balancing her role of society woman, friend, and daughter with the newfound freedom and wealth the death of her husband has given her.  Deciding to pursue academics instead of balls, tea parties, and luncheons, Lady Emily finds herself no longer readily accepted into high society.  Despite her wealth, London society matrons are not impressed by her social radicalization, pursuit of learning ancient Greece, and her well known protests of never marrying again.

In the midst of all this, a man turns up murdered, and artifacts once belonging to Marie Antoinette start disappearing from their wealthy owners.  What follows is a little bit of intrigue, suspense, romance, cat burglers, stalkers, pink diamonds, illegitimate children, love, pretenders to the throne.

The first two books didn't grab me the way this one did even though I did really enjoy them.  I like Lady Emily.  She's stubborn, smart, witty, and loyal.  Tasha Alexander writes poetically, but not obnoxiously so.  I had no idea where this book was headed. The ending was surprisingly, but not so far-fetched as to be unbelievable.

Well done Alexander.

According to amazon, there are three more books in this series.

current reads.

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
A Poisoned Season by Tasha Alexander
One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus
Daughter of the Saints by Dorothy Allred Solomon

What are you all reading?!

Love the one you're with by Emily Giffin

Love the one you're with is the third novel by Emily Giffin I've read in the past month or so.  This book does not have the same characters as the other, which was somewhat disappointing and somewhat of a relief.  Giffin writes a lot about infidelity.  People cheating, people thinking about cheating, or people wondering where that line is between cheating and not cheating.

Ellen runs into her former love, Leo, on a New York street.  Leo, a journalist, lands Ellen, a photographer, an awesome work gig.  Ellen doesn't tell her husband, which is the beginning of the snowball that continues with lies, deceits, secret meetings, and a move out of NY.  Motherless Ellen moves back to her husband's hometown of Atlanta and finds herself disenchanted, lonely, and bored.  Family and old money don't make anything perfect, and Ellen realizes everything she thought she wanted don't fulfill her at all.

I think this is the last Giffin book I'm going to read.  I need a break!  These books masquerade themselves has chick lit, but they hide deeper issues that are hard to read sometimes.

Under the banner of heaven by Jon Krakauer

I've recently become quite the Krakauer fan.  I bought this book at the airport in San Diego, and had a hard time putting it down once I started.  Under the banner of heaven is essentially an expose on fundamentalist Mormons and their practice of polygamy.  Not being Mormon, I just don't get most of their belief, rituals, or practices.  But the book was fascinating nonetheless.

After a woman and her infant daughter were killed by her brother-in-law claiming to have been told by God to commit murder, Krakauer attempts to reveal secrets of what men and women will do in the name of religion.  It brings up the age old debate of faith versus science.  People of all religions can find religious justification in religious texts to explain almost any types of behavior.  Taking that macroscopic view, Krakauer narrows that concept down to just Mormonism.  The result is interesting.

I enjoy reading about different religions, especially facets of certain religions like polygamy that are so alien to me.  One of the benefits of reading Mormon history is that most of it happened in the US.

Something Blue by Emily Giffin

After getting sucked into the hype of this book's prequel, Something Borrowed, I fell in love with the characters and therefore had to read this one.  Something Blue picks up right where Something Borrowed leaves off.  So much so that the books could have been one long book. 

Something Blue is about redemption.  The popular girl in high school grows up  to realize her manipulative, bossy ways won't let her survive as an adult, even if it did get through most of her twenties.  In Darcy's case, it took her fiance to leave her for her best friend for her to begin to reevaluate her life.  Even though Darcy is a beautiful, vivacious brunette, it's harder to hate her than you'd think.  After revealing she's pregnant, taking a leave of absence from her glamorous job, and moving to London, Darcy becomes a "real person."  She realizes the behind her pretty face, she actually has empathy, kindness, and the ability to form real, lasting friendships with other females that aren't based on competition.

Even "perfect" women screw up.  Even bratty, self-absorbed women can remake themselves.  The book's ending actually surprised me.  I didn't see the lead-up to it that I guess actually started in the first book.  At first I was disappointed that Dex and Rachel didn't show up more in this book, but as I kept reading, I found myself interested in Darcy.  During book 1, she seemed like such a superficial bitch that I didn't feel that bad that her fiance was cheating on her. 

I actually just finished another one of Emily Giffin's books, but I'll save that for another day.

Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin

I've had a somewhat interesting relationship with this book, although I didn't get around to reading it until this past week.  A former co-worker of mine lent this book, and its sequel, to a second co-worker, probably two years ago now.   I was next in line to read it (them), but said second co-worker never returned the books.  I was given Something Borrowed as a going away gift over a year and a half ago.  The book sat on a bookkshelf, unread, for over a year.  I ended up regifting to someone I thought would enjoy it, as I tend not to be a big chick-lit person.

Then the movie came out.  I missed it in the theater, but finally saw it available in a Redbox, rented it, and watched it over and over and over again.  I lent my rented copy to a current co-worker, and then ended up re-renting it again last weekend.  After my seventh or eighth viewing, I trekked over to Target to purchase the book, a book I once currently owned and never read.

Something Borrowed is a little about friendship, a little more about love, a lot about not letting people walk all over you.  Rachel is the doormat of the fabulous, fun, beautiful Darcy.  Best friends since childhood, their relationship hasn't changed much despite growing up.  Only now there's men involved.

I won't rehash all the details, since its been a wildly popular book, but my biggest frustration was why Rachel continued being friends with this girl, especially after consciously realizing Darcy is self-absorbed and manipulative.  I was rooting for her and Dex the whole way, because the relationship was right even though the circumstances were wrong.  Go Team Rachel.

Emily Giffin obviously went to law school.  Another chirp on the book is the amount of legalese.  None of it was necessary.  Or interesting.  Otherwise, she did a fabulous job of not letting the infidelity take over the book.  The characters were honest and well-developed, excepting maybe Dex, who made it most of the way towards being well-developed.

I haven't started Book 2 yet, but I can't wait to read it.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

It's been awhile since I've read a book I've been so utterly pleased with as I am with Life of Pi.  Pi, is Piscine Patel, a young Indian boy being raised with his brother in Pondicherry India.  The family makes their living owning a zoo, and Pi grows up surrounded by monkeys, lions, tigers, and other exotic animals. At fifteen Pi almost simultaneously converts to Christianity, Islam, and Hindu.  That's just who Pi is.  Political turmoil in India forces the family to pack up, sell most of their animals, and board a Japanese freighters bound for Canada.  Partway through the trip, the freighter sinks, and Pi finds himself on a lifeboat, with a zebra, a hyena, and a Bengal tiger.  A few days after the ship sinks, an orang-utan floats by on a raft of bananas.  The hyena eats the zebra and the orang-utan, the tiger eats the hyena.  To help ensure Pi doesn't get eaten, he establishes himself as the alpha male and works to train the tiger, Richard Parker, as best he can on a lifeboat using turtle shells as a shield.

So begins seven months on board a lifeboat with an Indian adolescent and a huge tiger.  He eats through the rations stored on the boat, then begins catching fish, turtles, and sharks to feed him and the tiger.  After months at sea, they come across an island inhabited only by meerkats.  Pi feasts on algae, Richard Parker feasts on the meerkats.  Eventually Pi leaves the boat at night to sleep in a tree, and notices strange things happening.  The island is carnivorous at night!  The next day Pi and the tiger leave the island, and eventually wash ashore in central Mexico.

Yann Martel is a talented writer.  He's poetic without being verbose, easy to read without being simplistic.  Such a fantastic story.  I had no idea what I was getting into when I picked up this book.  Pi is an awesome teenager; inventive, creative, brave, and strangely funny.  This book makes me remember why I love reading.