The Hidden Hand by E.D.E.N. Southworth

A very entertaining and almost unknown classic about a kick butt heroine.

Book summary:

The Hidden Hand (1888) is an exuberant action comedy, featuring fearless Capitola Black, a self-styled female Don Quixote, and the prototype of innumerable adventure heroines.
Rescued from life on the streets in New York by a southern plantation owner, with his own reasons for befriending her, Capitola is too active and adventurous to settle for the life of a southern belle. Besides, the neighbourhood is infested with evil-doers—Black Donald, the notorious bandit, and Gabriel Le Noir, the owner of the plantation adjoining—combine to make her life full of excitement and peril.
Serialized three times by popular demand before appearing in book form,The Hidden Hand exudes irresistible high spirits and cheer, and still retains the capacity to surprise and delight that enchanted its first readers.

Cap was totally my type of heroine. She was fearless and headstrong, but also smart and cared about people. It was refreshing reading a Victorian novel with a heroine like Cap. No matter how many heart attacks she almost gave her guardian, Cap was always out on some sort of adventure. With a big imagination, Cap never let her size or gender hold her back. Whether it was trying to capture a bandit or tricking a dastardly villain or challenging someone to a duel, she never thought she couldn't do it.

The Hidden Hand was also hilarious. It had several laugh out loud moments, all of which occurred around the free-spirited Cap. The end of the book happened sort of fast and it had a typical happily ever after, but other than that, I loved it!

Mailbox Monday 05.30.11

Hosted this month by MariReads.

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

Kate Sutherland always felt out of place in brash and modern Southern California. But when she comes to her ancestral home in the Shetland Islands to seek a mystical guide who may shed light on her true heritage, Kate is plagued with visions of a life from five centuries past.... A fiery young woman of royal English blood, Catriona Wells is determined to save her family from the deadly political clashes of 15th-century Britain. But Cat's cunning is no match for Scottish border lord Patrick MacKendrick. When this powerful warrior betroths her against her will, Cat must decide whether she dares to love him -- and to trust him with lives that are more precious to her than her own.

Meanwhile Kate, whose dreams rapidly take on a reality of their own, is caught between a present-day attraction to a charming Scottish historian -- and risking everything in Catriona's dangerous world of passion and bloodshed.

From Sourcebooks. Release date: August 1st.

Armchair BEA: Best of 2011

Today's Armchair BEA Daily Topic is: Best of 2011. So, here are my favorite books I've read so far this year:

  

  

I've read a lot of good books this year, so far - 38 in all. These are just a select few.

Mariana by Susanna Kearsley

Vienna Waltz by Teresa Grant

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

Cheri and The Last of Cheri by Colette

Charlotte and Emily by Jude Morgan

Wildflower Hill by Kimberley Freeman

(Blog Tour) Queen by Right by Anne Easter Smith

It was nice to read a book set during the War of the Roses, which is an era I'm not well read in. I learned – from the York perspective – much about the events and people surrounding the conflict while reading Queen by Right.

The novel is shown in the point of view of Cecily Neville, the wife of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and mother of Edward IV and Richard III. We see her as a child and then through the years, all the way up to the crowning of Edward IV. I loved the child Cecily, she was very spirited and often spoke her mind – while getting punished for it later. As she grew up, she lost a bit of that, but in it's place she became tough and fearless, earning the nickname 'Proud Cis'.

Since the book was from the point of view of a woman in those times, there was a lot of 'telling' instead of 'showing' of the major events throughout the conflict. However, there were some powerful scenes, such as Cecily meeting Joan of Arc while she was imprisoned – I quite liked how Joan of Arc was incorporated into the story, although there's no proof that the two ever met. The other scene that struck me was the scene at Ludlow, as Cecily held the hands of her sons George and Richard while staring down an army. This, we know, actually happened, and the way it was written in Queen by Right was very gripping.

Queen by Right was a chunkster, and took a bit for me to get through, but at the end, I felt rewarded. A good historical fiction novel.

I received the book for review as part of Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours.

The Mask of Night by Tracy Grant

A great sequel to Secrets of a Lady, taking place at the beginning of 1820, a few months after the events of that novel ended.

Charles and Mélanie Fraser, one of the most fashionable couples in London, are attending a masqued ball hosted by close friends. The party, however, soon ends when a dead man is found floating in a fountain, having been stabbed through the heart.

Charles and Mélanie, having only had a few months to recover from their own stressful ordeal, are asked to help and reluctantly agree. Charles soon finds out that Mélanie already knows who the dead man is, and Charles already knows he's not going to like why.

The mystery has plenty of twists and turns, shady characters and lots of action. Everybody seems to be hiding something, and as the story goes on, the layers are peeled back and we finally learn the truth.

However, the most fascinating aspect of this story, for me, is the relationship between Charles and Mélanie. I can't say much for those who haven't read Secrets of a Lady, but let's just say their relationship is still on very shaky ground from the revelations found out in that novel. They're still feeling each other out. The fact that their relationship isn't perfect is one of the big reasons why I love these books.

Another winner from Tracy Grant!

Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

Shades of Milk and Honey was a Regency romance à la Jane Austen or Georgette Heyer, but with a touch of fantasy.

In this version of Regency England, a talent for manipulating glamour was added along with music, drawing and such for a fashionable young lady's list of accomplishments. Other than that, everything else is relatively the same.

Shades of Milk and Honey is like an Austen novel in the sense that it borrows characters from Austen's stories. The heroine, Jane, is sort of like an Anne Elliot sort of character. There are also characters that resemble Darcy, Lydia, and Mr and Mrs Bennett in Jane's parents, among other characters.

The whole glamour thing took me a while to catch on to, but I eventually got it. Towards the end it got sort of distracting and in one scene I could barely keep up with what was happening; I had to reread it several times to finally get a hold of what was going on.

Jane has a particular talent for glamour and finds herself using it to get people out of nasty messes. Her talent soon has one upside, as it helps her find herself in her very own romance, something that at the age of 28, she had all but given up on.

All in all, a fairly good novel. Very entertaining.

Mariana by Susanna Kearsley

I just have to start this review out by saying: I hope Susanna Kearsley never, ever stops writing. This is only the second of her books that I have read, but it's another 5-star winner! I'll be rereading this sometime soon, no doubt!

Having said that, Marianna, like The Winter Sea, is another time-slip historical novel. Julia Beckett has been drawn to Greywethers since she was a kid, and as an adult decides to buy it. As Julia settles in, things start to happen that make Julia think she is starting to crack up.

She finds herself drawn into the past, literally, as Mariana Farr, a young woman who lived at Greywethers in the 17^th century. During these time slips, she is Mariana Farr; sometimes she can control it, sometimes she can't, but soon Julia finds herself more invested in the past than in the present. She realizes that the two are more intertwined then she would think.

I was so emotionally invested in Mariana, and I love that. I couldn't stop reading: torn between finding out what happens as soon as possible and never wanting the story to end.

I found the way Julia slipped into the past absolutely fascinating, but I don't want to give too much away. And as fascinating as it was, it was also a tad terrifying. I don't know how I would manage if that happened to me.

Mariana was a gorgeous book, flawlessly interweaving past and present. How everything flowed and tied together was absolutely masterful. The ending was just perfection, that even after I finished the book and went to bed, I turned the lights back on several times to read the last few pages. I just want to read the rest of Susanna Kearsley's books right now!