The Lost Queen: A Different Approach To Arthurian Legend

I have an interest in the legends that inspire us including those that are collectively known as the Matter of Britain.   Most people call them Arthurian although some of these stories deal with figures who were only parenthetically involved in the tale of King Arthur.

Signe Pike decided to re-examine the Arthurian Mythos when she learned that a man who appears to have been the historical Merlin had a twin sister.  A novel focused on Merlin's twin sister would certainly be covering new ground.  That's why I agreed to review The Lost Queen by Signe Pike when the publisher made a review request.  I received a digital ARC from the publisher via Net Galley and  this is my honest review.
                           
                                  

What sets this Arthurian novel apart is Signe Pike's source of inspiration.  She wasn't inspired by earlier Arthurian fiction, but by a history book called Finding Merlin by Adam Ardrey. Ardrey's Merlin is an individual who actually lived in 6th century Scotland.  If I had the time, I would have read this book and evaluated it as a work of historical scholarship before writing this review.  Since I am trying to keep my commitment to the publisher who entrusted me with an ARC for review before The Lost Queen's release, I decided to look for independent confirmation online instead.

 The search that I conducted first led me to a site called Undiscovered Scotland which has a page that I've hyperlinked devoted to a man who lived during the same period and in the same location, but didn't use the name Lailoken which Ardrey associated with his Merlin.  Yet I also found a book by historian Tim Clarkson called Scotland's Merlin which was published a number of years after Ardrey's.  It did use the name Lailoken.  Based on a review of Scotland's Merlin which I found on History Scotland's website here, Clarkson dismisses the idea that Lailoken was a Pagan.  The review states that Lailoken's story can be found in medieval legends dealing with St. Kentigern, one of those who is credited with having been involved in the process of converting Scotland. Lailoken is portrayed as a contemporary opponent of St. Kentigern in The Lost Queen.  The Christian conversion of Scotland is known to have taken place during a period of two centuries during which Scotland was in a state of religious transition that involved a great deal of conflict.  Stories associated with St. Kentigern are likely to have been hagiographic (celebrating his saintliness).  So the perspective they convey might be very biased.  Winston Churchill said that "history is written by the victors".  I believe that this quote applies to the medieval source about Lailoken mentioned in the review of Scotland's Merlin.

The existence of Lailoken was confirmed by my research, but readers should decide for themselves whether to believe what the supporters of St. Kentigern wrote about him. Signe Pike's protagonist, who is Lailoken's twin sister Languoreth, is portrayed in the novel as defending her brother from slanders that were written about him.

Languoreth is not portrayed as a medieval feminist.  As a  woman who was a daughter of a King, she was constrained in her choices.   She married the man that her father chose instead of the man she loved.   She did this for the sake of her family.   There was a great deal of tragedy in Languoreth's life.  I felt compassion for her, and tried not to judge her.  

This novel is compared to The Mists of Avalon because it takes the perspective of a woman, and portrays the struggle between Pagans and Christians that was taking place during that period.  Since it's the first volume in a trilogy, I will be interested in seeing how Signe Pike will put her personal stamp on her version of the Arthurian legend in future books.

                                

                             

                           

The Spying Moon: An RCMP Police Procedural

When publicist Wiley Saichek invited me to select a title for review from the upcoming releases of his client, Down and Out Books, I chose Spying Moon by Sandra Ruttan.  I'd never read anything by this author previously, nor had I read a police procedural dealing with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).  The  only crime author that I've blogged about who writes books that take place in Canada is Ausma Zehanat Khan whose protagonists work for the Toronto Police.  (See my review of Khan's The Unquiet Dead here.  I considered it the best mystery I read in 2017.)  The RCMP is a national police force.  I knew very little about them before starting this book.  I received a free copy for review from the publisher via Wiley Saichek.

                       

 The title is apparently derived from a legend about the North American indigenous trickster deity, Coyote, replacing the moon and spying on people.   I found a similar tale to the one mentioned in Spying Moon here.  You will need to scroll down to find the story.  It's credited as a myth of the Kalispel people  who have a reservation in the U.S. state of Washington.

Ruttan's protagonist is an RCMP constable who is female.  According to the RCMP Official Website, there were women working for them as constables as early as 1900.  Currently, one fifth of RCMP officers are women.  The central character Kendall Moreau was assigned to a town called Maple River which seems to be fictional.

Moreau's missing mother was of First Nations descent.  This is how Canada refers to its indigenous population.  Moreau was a child when her mother disappeared, and she had no other family that was known to the authorities. She was placed into foster care. This means that she knows nothing of her First Nations heritage.  In a more typical narrative centered on a character with this background, Moreau would have been studying with a medicine woman in order to get back to her roots.   This doesn't happen in Spying Moon.  Although Moreau was disappointed not to be in a position where she can work on her mother's very cold case, readers can expect her to be a professional who is focused on solving crimes.  She doesn't allow any prejudice or harassment that she encounters to stop her from doing her job.  I found her admirable.

The male partners that Moreau works with in her assignments are more ambivalent figures whose motives become  more clear over the course of the narrative.

Since Moreau is dealing with multiple investigations simultaneously, there is a large cast of  minor characters.   Sometimes Ruttan reminds us briefly of the role that they play, but not always.  There were a couple of occasions when I needed to page through my notes to refresh my memory about how these miscellaneous individuals fit into their respective cases.  This is my only criticism of Spying Moon.

I learned all sorts of interesting details about police procedures.  For example, CSI didn't just bag the contents of a victim's high school locker.  They removed the entire locker to dust for fingerprints and test for DNA.   There were also numerous plot twists and dramatic confrontations.   Ruttan is an experienced writer who knows how to build suspense.

I look forward to reading future novels about the adventures of Kendall Moreau in the RCMP.  Perhaps she may investigate cases that involve First Nations individuals or communities.  Yet she could be dealing with numerous types of ethnicities that reflect the diversity of 21st century Canadian society.  I have confidence in Moreau's ability to handle all the situations that might arise in the course of her career, and Ruttan's ability to portray them.

                        

                   

                          

                          

Her Fear: An Amish Romantic Suspense Novel That Should Have Been Wonderful

I was a recipient of an ARC of Her Fear by Shelley Shepard Gray which I won in a Goodreads giveaway that was sent to me by the publisher, Avon Inspire.  This is #5 in the Amish of Hart County.  It should be considered Christian romantic suspense.  I have in the past read a number of Amish novels in this category, but none were in this series by Shelley Shepard Gray.

As someone who had experience with a minority culture that found modern life problematic (Orthodox Jews) , I have an interest in how the Amish are dealing with the 21st century.  Christian writers who have done their research are more likely to be authentic in portraying Amish characters than those who aren't Christians. That's why I prefer to read Amish novels by Christian authors like Shelley Shepard Gray.

                       

 What I liked most about this book is that Gray doesn't portray the Amish as uniform in their beliefs and practices.  The Old Order Amish that I read about in novels by Beverly Lewis still exist, but there are also New Order Amish and other distinct flavors of Amish that represent a variety of approaches.  Gray has done her research.  She includes notes on a couple of different topics that are relevant to this book.  I was surprised to learn about the New Order Amish attitude toward alcohol use.

 After reading this book, I looked at a chart on Wikipedia  here about the adoption of technology in different sects of Amish and discovered that the most widely adopted technological device among all varieties of Amish is the electric washing machine.  I would speculate that the need of Amish women to do laundry for large families is what drives the Amish embrace of washing machines.  I also read the text of a radio interview on NPR's website here about Amish being selective in their adoption of technology based on whether they believe it will support or harm the Amish community. The Wikipedia chart shows that they have made a variety of such decisions depending on their particular beliefs.

I appreciated Shelley Shepard Gray's characterization in Her Fear.   The slow development of  Sadie, the female protagonist, toward independent judgement and the evolution of her attitude toward the male protagonist was very well handled.  I considered all the characters and relationships in this novel credible.  There were some very emotionally powerful moments.

I also thought that the investigation of the murders that were happening among Sadie's relatives led to surprising revelations.  So I would evaluate the suspense aspect of the novel as successful as well.

I was considering giving this book five stars on Goodreads until relatively late in my reading process when my evaluation changed.

Unfortunately, the ARC edition that I received from the publisher contained errors that went beyond ordinary typographical mistakes.   The most serious was an inconsistency in describing the relationship between Sadie's family of origin and her cousins.  Were they related to her mother or her father?  The first is more likely, but the second is possible and would alter my entire view of Sadie's father. The implications of the Kentucky cousins being the family of origin for Sadie's father involve a major shift in character dynamics.   It would make Sadie's father a more complex character with understandable motivations who becomes somewhat more sympathetic in retrospect.  In some ways, this would be an improvement in the novel, but it does seem more likely that the original idea that they are related to Sadie's mother is what the author intended.  I have no idea if this inconsistency exists in the finished book.  I did see another review from someone who received a free copy on Goodreads who complained about this error and others that were less serious.  Since it is a significant inconsistency, I can't in good conscience give this book a five star rating.

Publishers ask professional reviewers to consider only the text in finished copies even if they received an ARC.  They are expected to consult the published version before finalizing their reviews.   I feel that readers who aren't writing professional reviews shouldn't be expected to consult anything but the edition in their hands. I myself am in the category of non-professional reviewer.   I'm just a blogger, folks.   I do this in my spare time.  So I'm telling you about the copy of the book that I read, but for the sake of accuracy I'm notifying readers who are considering a purchase of this book that the version for sale may be a corrected text without the errors that I found in the ARC.

I'm really sorry that the early edition of such a good book had such a serious problem.

                             

                        

                 

Killing in C Sharp--African American Woman Solves Mysteries in Ireland

I received Killing in C Sharp by Alexia Gordon from Net Galley, but read it recently because it's going to be discussed next week at the F2F mystery book club that I attend.   It's the third in a paranormal mystery series whose protagonist, Gethsemane Brown, is a school musical director in a small Irish village.  Like author Alexia Gordon, Gethsemane is African American.  The first book in the series, Murder in G Major reveals how Gethsemane ended up in Ireland.   If you feel that it's important to know the central character's background, by all means read Murder in G Major before this book. Yet I should point out that Gethsemane's U.S. background plays no role in Killing in C Sharp. So it's definitely possible to read this book first. I read Murder in G Major before there were any other books in the series and enjoyed it for the most part.  This inclined me to read another book in the series.

                     

Gethsemane rents a cottage that is haunted by a ghost.  So the owner of the cottage decided to pay a ghost hunting TV series to film an episode at his cottage.  Since I tend to suspect TV ghost hunters of faking the phenomena that they are supposedly investigating, I almost didn't read this book.  I expected it to deal with frauds discovering that there actually was a ghost which is mildly amusing, but I felt that I had better things to do with my reading time.   I turned out to be wrong about the TV ghost hunters.  There was also content that was a great deal more interesting to me.

Gethsemane invited an Irish composer, Aed Devlin, to give a series of lectures to her students.  Devlin was also premiering a new opera which was based on a Hungarian legend associated with a curse.  I happen to be an opera fan, and the legend described in the book definitely caused this feminist to sit up and take notice. I researched the story and learned that it isn't an actual Hungarian legend.  Alexia Gordon created it probably from the bones of a folk tale called The Walled Up Wife .  It's a different yet equally awful story from a feminist perspective, but Gordon's addition of a curse and a ghost vastly improved the narrative.

The murder expected by mystery lovers happened, and the local Catholic priest was given an opportunity to contribute a very fine witticism which I just adored.  I'll leave my readers to discover it for themselves.

 I consider Killing in C Sharp better than its description and the mystery more intriguing than in the first novel in the series.  The resolution was inventive.  I can't wait to see what Alexia Gordon comes up with in her next Gethsemane Brown novel.

                             

                          



     

Madilla: The Spirit of U'Katang--Fighting For A Woman's Right to Play A Musical Instrument

I obtained Madilla: The Spirit of U'Katang by Ian B. Boyd from Net Galley because the book deals with a girl who plays the piano.  I have an interest in female protagonists who are involved in any of the arts.  The summary implies very adverse circumstances for this young musician.  I don't believe this book was written with a teen audience in mind.  There are mature themes and mature content.

                           

The author states that Madilla takes place in an imaginary country.  There are linguistic and cultural similarities to real places.  At first,  I wondered why  Boyd didn't situate it in a known location. The village described is under military occupation.  It could have been in a number of different nations, but it occurred to me that Boyd wants us to realize that this type of story could apply to all of them.  He shows the impact of occupation on everyone in that village.
 
 Madilla's problem with a ban on women participating in music wasn't imposed by the occupiers. This is a traditional taboo in her own culture which she defies.  I could identify with her since I came up against some serious opposition to women singing as a child in the Jewish Orthodox community.   I discuss the spectrum of  Jewish opinions on women singing in "Are The Haredi Jewish Taliban?" here.

Although I knew of religious traditions where music isn't allowed at all, I wasn't aware of specific cultural proscriptions against women playing or even touching musical instruments. So I ran a search on the topic.  As a result, I discovered a very illuminating blog article by Josh Middleton dealing with this prohibition as a cross-cultural issue here.  There are still prejudices against women playing certain musical instruments. Middleton points out that in contemporary pop music, there are few highly regarded female guitarists.

I consider this a feminist book.  Both men and women have hard lives in Madilla, but there is a strong focus on the problems of women, and it seems to me that the most sympathetic characters are female.

The first ten percent of Madilla establishes the character and context.   I wasn't bothered by this, and considered the entire novel well-written.  Some readers may experience the book as slow-paced.

Madilla has been shelved as fantasy on Goodreads.  It isn't epic fantasy.  It takes place in our contemporary world, so readers may feel genre confusion.  Others may identify the book with magic realism.  The category to which Madilla belongs isn't obvious at the outset.  This may be problematic for those who really want to know what sort of book they're reading.  It isn't clear at the beginning whether Madilla is paranormally gifted or highly imaginative.  Let's just say that by the end of the novel you will definitely know the answer to that question.

  Madilla is not a book for people who are uncomfortable with uncertainty.  Yet if you're willing to deal with fantasy/magical realism and you love protagonists who are musicians, you may enjoy this book as much as I did.

                           

Lone Wolf in Jerusalem: A Historical Thriller About Resisting The British Occupation of Palestine

When I saw Lone Wolf in Jerusalem by Ehud Diskin on Net Galley, it intrigued me.  I had read books taking place in British Mandate Palestine, but I hadn't seen this sort of focus before.  Since it was a Read Now book, I was able to download it right away.  So when publicist Wiley Saichek asked me if I wanted to review it, I said that I already had a copy for review.

                         

Although Lone Wolf in Jerusalem is primarily a thriller, I find myself wanting to discuss characters. I loved  Shoshana.  Her character arc of recovery from her experiences during WWII really pulled me in to the book.  Yet I have to say that at the beginning of the novel, I found the perspective of the protagonist understandable, but not sympathetic.   David Gabinsky, the main character, was an anti-Nazi resistance fighter and a Holocaust survivor when he arrived in British Mandate Palestine.   He decided to take action against British police officers on his own.  With his background, I understood why David did not distinguish between the Nazis and the British occupiers.  He saw himself as continuing his World II struggle against the enemies of Jews.

Before writing this review, I thought about how I wanted to approach the issue of terrorism.  I re-read my review of  The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem by Sarit Yishai-Levi which partly took place in British Mandate Palestine.  You can find it here.  In that review, I remarked about terrorism that "I tend to draw the line at the victimizing of innocent civilians." This expresses my opinion on the subject in a nutshell which is why I am quoting it in this review.  I learned from Lone Wolf in Jerusalem that a Jewish terrorist organization of this period known as the Lehi attacked British civilians in direct opposition to the policy of the Irgun, a much better known anti-British Jewish terrorist organization.  My feeling is that the Irgun policy makes an important ethical statement. At one point in this book, David realized that he had victimized innocents in one of his actions, and came to regret it. Diskin shows us a protagonist who evolves in his thinking, and becomes more sympathetic over the course of the novel.

While I knew something about the Irgun before I read this book, I was extremely uninformed about the Lehi.  I had known that it was called the Stern Gang by its opponents.  So after writing the above paragraph,  I did some research.  British historian Colin Schindler's website pointed me in the direction of The Stern Gang by Joseph Heller.  I'll definitely want to read it. The Lehi didn't play a significant role in Lone Wolf in Jerusalem, but Diskin's content about the Lehi in this novel caused me to think that I wanted to know more.

 Diskin's military background lends tremendous verisimilitude to the action scenes in this thriller.  There is a great deal more talk about strategy and tactics than I am accustomed to seeing in thrillers, but they weren't just dry discussions.  Diskin contextualized strategy and tactics within the life of the protagonist.  David's choices were accompanied by flashbacks when they were related to specific memories from his experiences. 

I am usually disappointed by bestsellers when I read them, but this Israeli bestseller was both intense and informative.

                      

                    

The Deadliest Fever (Miriam Bat Isaac #4)--Reversing My First Impression

I accepted an invitation to review The Deadliest Fever, the fourth in the Miriam Bat Isaac historical mystery series recently.  The invitation was made by Destiny Brown, a tireless promoter of indie books on Goodreads.  I read all of Destiny's promotional posts.  I figure it was inevitable that one day my interests and hers would intersect.  So I clicked on her link to Net Galley's page for The Deadliest Fever and downloaded a review copy from the indie publisher.

                             

                              
I purchased the first book in the Miriam Bat Isaac series, The Deadliest Lie some time ago because I'm interested in books taking place in ancient Alexandria, and historical fiction with Jewish protagonists. So I decided to read The Deadliest Lie first as background for The Deadliest Fever.  I can't recommend that other readers do the same unless your main interest in historical mysteries is the historical aspect.  There are mountainous info dumps in June Trop's first novel, and the mystery element isn't introduced into the plot until 31%  in the Kindle edition.  I am not the only one to complain about this issue on Goodreads.   Only the most patient mystery reader should attempt to apply themselves to such a narrative.

I would also like to warn those who thought you might eventually want to tackle the gladiatorial book three in the series, The Deadliest Sport.  You probably shouldn't read The Deadliest Fever beforehand.   It contains major spoilers dealing with the The Deadliest Sport's resolution.  Unless you are as tolerant of spoilers as I am, I would advise you to read book three first.

Regardless of when you decide to start The Deadliest Fever, you can expect mystery action beginning at the novel's opening.  So the plot's pacing is vastly improved over book one.

 I also complained in my Goodreads review of  The Deadliest Lie that although it was realistic for Miriam Bat Isaac to behave like an immature teenager when she was seventeen, she wasn't the sort of protagonist that I prefer.  I do read YA, but the YA novels I like best contain unusual central characters who don't behave like typical teenagers. So I was delighted to find that Miriam Bat Isaac is a thirty year old woman in The Deadliest Fever, and is therefore much more in line with my preferences.

Since I enjoy doing research about topics that interest me which are raised in the books that I read,  I often bring up searches I conducted in my reviews.   In this case, I want to discuss my research process.

In The Deadliest Fever, Miriam wants to discover who damaged the mantle which covered her synagogue's Torah.  Mantles are made of cloth covered with embroidery.  Sometimes they are encrusted with gems.

 Since I have seen that not all Torahs are covered with mantles in a contemporary Jewish context, I did a search on the subject.  I discovered that covering Torahs with mantles is an Ashkenazi practice.  Ashkenazis are the descendants of Jews from Germany and Eastern Europe. I myself am of Ashkenazi descent, but there were no Ashkenazis in ancient times.  The only Jews in ancient Alexandria would have been Mizrachis, Jews whose ancestors came from the Middle East.   The current Mizrachi practice is to cover Torahs with silver cylinders which would keep them upright at all times.

 There is a theological conflict of the Sephardis /Mizrachis vs. the Ashkenazis over whether Torahs should be upright or diagonal.  Sephardis are the community descended from the Jewish refugees expelled from Spain.  Many of them settled in the Middle East and adopted the Mizrachi outlook.  If you want to learn more about the reasons behind this disagreement, see this Q & A on the Chabad website.  Chabad is the largest Jewish outreach organization in the world.  Their orientation is Haredi (ultra-Orthodox), but they engage in outreach to Jews of all backgrounds.  After reading that Q & A , I came to the mistaken conclusion that June Trop had been inauthentic.  I believed that the Torah in The Deadliest Fever should have been covered with a wooden or silver cylinder.

Then I gave some additional thought to the matter.  The Rabbis cited in the Chabad Q & A had been medieval authorities. They weren't Talmudic Rabbis from the Roman period.  That entire geographical disagreement hadn't existed in ancient times.  I still needed to find out about ancient Torah covering practices.   I found my answer in an article from the Jewish Virtual Library which revealed that "important" Torahs in the ancient Middle East were covered in cloth.   The Torah in the Great Synagogue of Alexandria would have been regarded as important.  So June Trop had been accurate in her portrayal of that Torah after all.

I included my entire process because I wanted to remind people that asking the right question is the foundation of good research.  This is especially important in evaluating an author's accuracy. 

 The Deadliest Fever has the same great historical background that I found in the first book, but it's used more judiciously.  Plot is prioritized and the maturation of Miriam Bat Isaac has made her a much more viable protagonist.   I expect to go back and read the second book in the series, The Deadliest Hate, eventually.  June Trop has successfully reversed the negative first impression I had after reading her first novel.