The Alice Network - Kate Quinn

This intriguing novel is based on an actual spy ring that operated in World War I. The real-life Louise de Bettignies, alias Alice, was the brilliant leader of The Alice Network, a very effective group of espionage agents in France who spied on the Germans. Although Louise is an important character in the novel the central characters are the fictional Eve and Charlotte, aka Charlie. In 1947, Eve is a bitter, foul-mouthed alcoholic who had been a spy in both the WWI Alice Network and in WWII. Charlie is a 19-year-old American who is desperately trying to find her cousin Rose who went missing in 1944, presumably while working for the French Resistance. Charlie enlists Eve’s help in finding Rose. Eve’s ulterior motive is to find Rene, a French profiteer Eve spied on during the first World War. Will Charlie find Rose and fulfill their dream of owning a café together? Will Eve find Rene and seek revenge? While the readers follow the 1947 search, we are also told the story of how young, innocent Eve becomes such a wretched character while serving in The Alice Network in 1915. The story kept my interest throughout with exciting plot turns and compelling characters. I have to say that the fictional Rene is one of the creepiest, sleaziest villains I’ve read in a novel in a long time! Author Kate Quinn’s depiction of wartime deprivation and resistance reminded me of Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale and Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See although Quinn’s novel is not as lyrical as Doerr’s. I appreciated Quinn’s notes at the end of the book about the real Alice Network. I recommend this very readable novel to fans of historical fiction.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane - Lisa See

I’ve been a fan of Lisa See’s cultural and historical novels since reading her bestseller Snow Flower and the Secret Fan several years ago. See’s books have good story telling, compelling characters and fascinating depictions of ancient or contemporary China. See’s latest work, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, has all these qualities. The story begins in 1988 with Li-yan, a young woman of the Akha Hill Tribe of China. Her family ekes out an existence growing and processing tea in a remote village. Li-yan has an unhappy love affair that results in the birth of a baby girl. Evading a tribal taboo of the time that forbids the love child to live, Li-yan secretly leaves the baby at an orphanage. The reader then follows the separate life journeys of Li-yan and her daughter. Through education, Li-yan leaves the village and makes a successful life in modern day China as an entrepreneur of the rare, highly prized tea called Pu’er. Her daughter is adopted by an affluent American family who name her Haley and provide a privileged life in Pasadena, California. Li-Yan agonizes over the loss of her child. Haley struggles with feelings of gratitude for her adopted parents and anger at her biological parents for abandoning her. Li-yan and Haley’s search for each other is what makes the novel a page turner. My favorite parts of the novel are when See deftly interweaves Akha traditions into the storyline. My only criticisms of the book are that Li-yan’s journeys to the “outside world” seem a bit far-fetched at times and See’s lengthy descriptions of cultivating Pu’er tea is perhaps more information than the reader needs to know. But if you enjoy well-written cultural and historical novels, I enthusiastically recommend this book and all of See’s works. 

Also, I was very interested to learn the “back story” for this book. On her Web site at LisaSee.com, the author provides wonderful videos about the Akha culture and her own experiences in China researching this book. And I was fascinated by a YouTube talk given by See in which she discusses her in-depth interviews with Chinese women adopted by American parents. Lisa See is passionate about her research into culture and history and that passion is present in all her well-crafted, highly readable novels.

Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke

In Childhood's End, futuristic alien spaceships suddenly appear over major cities all over the world. Although the alien "Overlords" do not exit the ships, they issue a few dictates to humanity (such as the prohibition on harming animals), and allow a single human representative, UN Secretary Stormgren, to board the ship every few weeks and talk to their Alien "Supervisor," Karellen, through a voice apparatus. Mostly through gentle guidance, the aliens reshape earth's civilization entirely - there is no more crime or violence, everyone's basic needs are met, and the populace is free to live a life of idle pleasures. However, this has deleterious effects on human culture - the arts stagnate, and intellectual pursuits are cramped. Some members of human society want to rebel against the overlords, and especially, to at least SEE one of them.

This book is written in a charmingly writerly style evoking the time in which it was written (1953), but the ideas are entirely original, and some of the technology and concepts still feel futuristic today.

Would recommend!

The Enchantress of Florence

This is a lush book, with bravura writing, that weaves a magical and captivating tale together with historical events and figures.  A charismatic and beautiful young man arrives in Mughal India from Florence with an outlandish tale of presumed relationship to Akbar, the all powerful ruler. Is his implausible story true, entitling him to become part of the ruling family, or is he a likable and immensely gifted con man, who should perhaps be put to death?

When the sword of the tongue is drawn, the emperor thought, it inflicts deeper cuts than the sharpest sword.

The power of artistic creation is a central to the book, in small ways:

the court's musical genius Tansen had gone so far as to create a raag in the two courtesan's honor, the raag deepak, so called because when he played it for the first time in the House of Skanda the sorcery of the melody made unlit lamps burst into flame.

And in major themes: The emperor, through the power of his imagination alone, creates one living, perfect wife, visible to him and a few others, who is eventually replaced by Qara KÖz, Lady Black Eyes, who had died more than a century previously.  

The book is a pleasure to read, in its historical range, bursts of humor, mordant views of  man, and celebration of artists.

On Basilisk Station - David Weber

Our bookclub's theme for our 2 books this month is military sci-fi with strong female protagonists. In this novel, Commander Honor Harrington is finally awarded command of her own ship, only to be banished to a remote duty station after humiliating her incompetent superior officer. Worse, she is placed under the authority of a spoiled slimeball who once tried to sexually assault her. Beset by challenges, Honor relies on her pluck and determination to achieve her near-impossible assignment. A bit clunkily written, but packs a punch. I also enjoyed her relationship with her six-legged empathic pet treecat. :)

Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold

I absolutely loved our bookclub's most recent pick, Cordelia's Honor. It is the story of Captain Cordelia Naismith, a scientist/explorer in the mold of Star Trek's Captain Janeway - kind, strong, resourceful, compassionate, and with a powerful moral compass. Cordelia is enjoying a routine survey mission to an unclaimed planet when she and her crew are attacked by a squad of Barrayans, a militant race with a revered warrior caste, the Vor. She is taken prisoner by their honorable commander, Aral Vorkosigan, and the two unexpectedly fall in love. Eventually, Cordelia returns with him to Barrayar as Lady Vorkosigan, where the two are swept up in intergalactic politics and domestic revolution. Powerfully written, with interesting reflections on war, love, gender dynamics, and the stigma of disability. Not your typical romance novel.

Under the Wide and Starry Sky

This is an enjoyable and interesting novel based on historical fact, about the passionate and productive relationship between Fanny Osbourne and Robert Louis Stevenson.  The story is true to the major events in their lives and some dialog is based on letters or diaries, though most is created out of the author's sympathetic understanding of their characters - and is quite believable.

RLS first meets American Fanny Osbourne in France, where she has fled from her philandering husband, taking her three children to Paris to study art.  Stevenson is smitten with her and eventually, though he is 11 years younger, they begin a relationship - which is complicated by her husband's determination to regain his family (while retaining his extracurricular love life).  In confusion, she returns to California and her husband, leaving RLS in doubt and near despair, though eventually she writes and pleads with him to come to California to rescue her.  All these events intertwine with Stevenson's early attempts to establish himself as a writer - not only because this is his passion, but also because of his determination to earn enough to support his potential family.  The very emotional and uncertain story of whether and how Fanny and RLS will get together forms the crux of the first half of the book.

The second half of their story is framed by the terrible state of Stevenson's health and Fanny's wholly devoted and exceptionally skillful efforts to keep him alive.  This quest necessitates travels to various climates that might help Stevenson's severe tuberculosis, including Davos, the English seaside, voyages at sea and, finally, Samoa, where RLS becomes the healthiest he has been in his entire life and where he wholeheartedly embraces the people, language and land of Samoa.  This portion of the book is energized by Fanny's devotion to Stevenson, which, however, deprives her of the time to pursue her own artistic ambitions, and by her increasing estrangement from Stevenson, who begins to dismiss Fanny's artistic abilities and needs as inferior to his own.  Eventually, these strains lead to or intensify severe episodes of mental illness, shocking Stevenson, who then honestly and seriously repents his ill treatment of Fanny.  Their relationship is recovering slowly until Stevenson's early and sudden death, not from tuberculosis, but a cerebral hemorrhage.

This was a very satisfying read for me - and has been very favorably reviewed by readers - but I suspect it's of special interest mainly to those who, like me, think, or rather hope, that they actually were Robert Louis Stevenson in a prior incarnation.