Censorettes: A Novel About Women Reading Mail During WWII on Bermuda

Although I have read so much fiction dealing with WWII, I can still encounter a WWII novel taking place in an unusual setting such as the island of Bermuda in Censorettes by Elizabeth Bales Frank.  I received a digital review copy of Frank's book from publicist Wiley Saichek. 

 

                                   

  When you see the words "female spies", readers probably imagine activities that would be somewhat more glamorous than sitting in an office working their way through stacks of correspondence.  The Censorettes were women who actually were assigned by British Intelligence to read mail sent between European and North American residents during WWII.  I assumed that locating the operation in Bermuda was a convenient means of intercepting potentially dangerous letters before they reached their recipients.

Protagonist Lucy Barrett's knowledge of multiple European languages made her quite useful in her position, but much of this novel centers on relationships.  This is the dramatic heart of the book. We learn about Lucy's friendships with other Censorettes, her family history and her social interactions with men. 

One of the characters is murdered, but little space is devoted to this crime.   As a mystery fan, I would have liked to have seen some investigation, but there apparently wasn't any.  So I would categorize this book as non-genre historical fiction rather than a mystery or a crime thriller.

Censorettes is not for everyone.  I would recommend this book to readers who are interested in seeing WWII from an unusual angle, and who have some tolerance for novels whose pace is rather leisurely.   

I appreciated learning about the author's sources in the Notes and Acknowledgments.  I consider historical accuracy one of this book's strengths.

                                      

 

 

                                  

Nothing Good Happens After Midnight: An Anthology Edited by Jeffery Deaver

 I thought that I rarely posted about short story anthologies for this blog.  While it's true that this is the first one that I've reviewed here in 2020, I discovered that I'd posted a total of 13 fiction anthology reviews in this blog's history.  The last one was a review of an anthology whose authors were from nations that had been banned from the U.S. in 2017 called Banthology.  That post appeared in 2018 here.

Nothing Good Happens After Midnight is a more traditional type of anthology.  It's a collection of mystery stories edited by bestselling author, Jeffery Deaver.   I received a review copy from Suspense Magazine, the publisher of this anthology.  

                                     

 

I generally find that when I read an anthology my reactions to particular stories might be anywhere on the positive to negative scale regardless of the authors' reputations.  So it's not astonishing that  I didn't love all the stories in this one, but I did think that Deaver saved up the best tales for last.   

My personal favorite was the final story,  "ATM" by Jon Land.  It's  a heartwarming modern fairy tale in which a man who never had any luck learns that kindness and generosity pays with the help of a rather extraordinary ATM.

I also really enjoyed the second to last story,  "Tonight is the Night" by Shannon Kirk in which there are serial killers, but there is also a wonderful dog and true love.

To a lesser degree, I liked "The Sixth Decoy" by Paul Komprecos because it centrally involved bird carvings.  I also liked Heather Graham's "Midnight in the Garden of Death" which dealt with ghosts and the historical legacy of a murder as well as a modern serial killer.  There were other stories by authors I'd previously read in this anthology, but Heather Graham's contribution was the only one by a familiar author that I enjoyed.

"Cell Phone Intolerant" by Kevin O'Brien stood out as very unusual, but I also found it disturbing.  Some readers  may like that sort of story. I read mysteries to be intellectually challenged by the whodunit puzzle, not disturbed.

My next read will be a thriller, and I hope I will be less ambivalent about it than I've felt about this anthology.

                              

 

 

 

The Man in Milan: New York Murders Have Italian Connections

 When I read the description of The Man in Milan by Vito Racanelli, I thought that I'd be most interested in Hamilton P. Turner, the African American NYPD detective who's an opera buff.  I am an opera fan myself. In fact, I've previously blogged about Carmen: A Gypsy Geography, a book dealing with the background of the opera Carmen, here.  I also blogged about Killing in C Sharp in which a fictional opera plays a minor role here.  Unfortunately, the opera element in The Man in Milan was nearly non-existent, but I did learn a great deal about relatively recent Italian history as a result of reading this book.  So I'm glad I requested an ARC of this international thriller from publicist Wiley Saichek.

                              

 

I would never have suspected that 2020 killings taking place in New York could have potential links to a plane crash off the coast of Italy that took place in 1980, or to a shadowy 20th century Italian cabal that I'd never previously heard about called Gladio. I'm not providing any links because that would give away too much of the plot.  Though Italian readers may be familiar with these events.  The author makes it all seem very convincing, but The Man in Milan shouldn't be regarded as actual history.  Racanelli is engaging in fictional extrapolation that will delight conspiracy fans everywhere. 

As someone who is interested in women in aviation, I wanted to find out more about a female character's remark that Italian women weren't allowed to be pilots when she was choosing a vocation.  I discovered that  Rosina Ferrario was the first Italian woman to receive a pilot's license in 1913, but she didn't actually have a flying career.

The Italian American NYPD detective, Paul Rossi, who is the main point of view character in The Man in Milan, is fluent in Italian.  His knowledge of the language and Italian culture furnishes readers with more of an insider perspective.  Though I do believe that Rossi's  unpredictable health condition should have sidelined him.  If I had been in charge of the direction of Rossi's police career, I would have consigned him to a desk job. Yet it seems likely that Rossi will continue to play an active role in future investigations if Racanelli publishes any further novels dealing with these characters.

                            

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Time Collector: The Past is Touchable

I am continuing to catch up on my Goodreads giveaway wins.  The Time Collector by Gwendolyn Womack was a 2019 win.  The last GR giveaway win that I blogged about was Josephine Baker's Last Dance by Sherry Jones. That post appeared last month on Flying High Reviews here.  Yet normally, I only review GR wins on Goodreads.  The ones that I review at length on one of my blogs are particularly noteworthy.

                                

 

The genre of  The Time Collector could be considered paranormal romance.  Most books in this genre are primarily romances written for romance readers.  This book is primarily paranormal.  It focuses on psychometry, the ability to read the history of an object by touching it.   I am fascinated by this paranormal gift.  A number of the characters in this book are psychometrists including the male protagonist, Roan West.  The female protagonist, Melicent Tilpin, is also a psychometrist, but she is less powerful and less experienced than Roan.  On the other hand, it isn't Melicent who needs to be rescued in this book.  She's entirely capable of rescuing herself.

It was important to me that Roan wasn't just collecting artifacts.  He was returning them to the families of the individuals that had owned them when he could find them.   He didn't believe that European Americans were somehow entitled to all the loot that they or their ancestors had taken.  

There is a spiritual dimension to The Time Collector, but it's not as well developed as the paranormal aspect.  Roan utilizes mudras which are gestures that can be used for a variety purposes in Hinduism and Buddhism.   In the acknowledgements, Womack tells us that her source for mudras was Mudras For Modern Life by Swami Saradananda, who is a female Swami.   I liked researching all the mudras that are mentioned, but Roan's spiritual practices felt like they lacked context.  In isolation they seemed less meaningful to me, but I was glad that they were there.

Gwendolyn Womack has said that she's considering a sequel to The Time Collector.  I hope that there is a sequel.  Psychometry has so much potential.  It opens doors into the individual experiences that are the basis of history.

                             

The Thirty Names of Night: Heartfelt Syrian American Trans Novel

When the publisher e-mailed me about The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar, the summary they provided indicated that there are several themes of interest to me. Prominent characters who are artists were an added inducement. So I accepted a free copy from the publisher via Net Galley and agreed to review it.  

                               

My research on Zeyn Joukhadar allowed me to establish that the story of  the Syrian American trans male protagonist in The Thirty Names of Night is an Own Voices narrative.  The previous novel that I read dealing with Syrian immigrant characters was The Beekeeper of Aleppo written by an author of  Greek Cypriot origin.  I discussed the appropriateness of her choice in my review here.  Yet I feel more certain of the authenticity of this book.

I was very moved by the journey of the protagonist to find his identity.  This seeking is echoed in the search of another trans male  that he discovered in the notebook of a woman artist who was important to his mother.  

At a more fundamental level, The Thirty Names of Night caused me to reflect on the nature of personal histories.  It isn't just about one individual.  It's the story of a family whether it be a genetic family or a chosen one, and the story of a community.  All these lives overlap and gain significance from their connections.  That's what I saw in this book.

I was delighted to see an acknowledgement of the Native peoples on whose land Zeyn Joukhadar wrote.   I've never seen any other U.S. author do that.  

In the end, The Thirty Names of Night is a unique paean to diversity--diversity of gender, diversity of culture and diversity of aspirations.