'Then Came You' by Jennifer Weiner

Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

Jules Wildgren is a 21-year-old Princeton college student with a full scholarship and a family she's ashamed to invite to Parents' Weekend. Tall, blonde, and outwardly identical to her wealthy classmates, her plan is to take the 10,000 dollars she'll receive from donating her 'pedigree' eggs and try to save her father from addiction.

Amie Barrow is a 34-year-old married mother of two who scrapes by on her family's single paycheck.After watching a TV show about surrogates, she thinks she's found a way to recover a sense of purpose and bring in some extra cash.

India Bishop, 38 years old (really 43), believes she's found her happy-ever-after when she marries a wealthy and much older man, Marcus Croft, but decides that a baby will seal the deal. When all of her attempts at pregnancy fail, she turns to technology - and Annie and Jules - to help make her dreams come true.

But each woman's plans are thrown into disarray when Marcus suddenly dies, and his 23-year-old daughter, Bettina, is named guardian of India's unborn child. As the baby's due date draws near, these four women - with nothing and everything in common - discover what makes each of them a mother in her own right.

The old saying ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ has never been truer than in this day and age. Although it’s not so much ‘raising’ but the ‘conceiving’ that can now take upwards of three people, as four women are about to discover. . .

There’s the egg-donor, Jules, an attractive college student who wants to put the $20,000 towards her father’s drug rehabilitation.

Annie is a stay-at-home mother of two, with a husband working two jobs and studying at night. Though only twenty-four, she already knows the many woes of scrimping and saving, so she sees offering up her womb to a paying couple as not only a great way to make money, but a way to put her best credential (being pregnant) to good use.

India is a chameleon. She’s been botoxed, tucked, pumped and injected to within an inch of her 43-years (though 38, if anyone asks). Now she has scored herself one of New York’s wealthiest older gentlemen, Marcus Croft, and she wants a family – in part, because of the cosy prenup she’ll get for having one of Marcus’s children, but also because she wants to feel more like a family unit with the man she has (unexpectedly) come to love and care for.

Bettina is India’s sceptical step-daughter. Her mother ran off to a Mexico Ashram with her younger yoga instructor lover, and for years her father was the butt of newspaper column jokes and society sympathy. Now he has India, and he seems happy. But a little digging reveals that India is no more real than her double-D’s, and her father may be being taken for a ride . . . throw a baby into the mix, and India will get double the money and sink her claws even further into Bettina’s beloved father.

One egg donor.
One Surrogate.
One paying mother.
One baby.
Four women.

‘Then Came You’ is the new novel by best-selling author, Jennifer Weiner.

In 2007 a Marie Claire article by Abigail Haworth came out, titled ‘Surrogate Mothers: Womb for Rent’. After reading in glossy magazines about the celebrity mothers who used surrogates, and the feel-good stories about gay couples able to conceive, Haworth’s article was a disturbing revelation. She researched the growing trend of ‘reproductive tourism’, in which would-be Western parents use Indian surrogates to carry their children (for a number of financial and legal reasons). This article was a very different viewpoint about surrogacy and the scientific miracles of in vitro fertilization – because Haworth presented this ‘miracle’ as a business transaction, yet another commodity for Western parents to outsource and export. Understandably, the article was a water-cooler topic. And now, best-selling author Jennifer Weiner (of ‘In Her Shoes’ fame) is tackling the surrogacy issues from multiple angles. . .

In ‘Then Came You’, Weiner offers up four different viewpoints, which are at first disjointed and superficially related. Annie and her husband, Frank, are struggling to keep up payments on their sprawling farm house where they dreamed of raising their big family. . . and then the recession hit. Now Frank is working round the clock and Annie, as a stay at home mum, feels like she isn’t contributing much to their struggling finances. When she hears about a surrogacy program (which offers women, minimum, $50,000 to carry someone else’s baby) she starts to formulate a plan. . .

Jules is an attractive college student who has never felt comfortable in her beautiful body. But when a stranger suggests she look into egg donation (and get herself a nice nest egg of $20,000 in the process) she instantly thinks of her drug-addicted father, and how that money could get him into a decent rehab facility. . .

Then there are the other two women, Bettina and India, who are connected by Bettina’s father, Marcus Croft, who also happens to be India’s new husband. These two float on the periphery of reader’s minds for a few chapters, unsure of where they fit into the grand scheme of things. India, having snagged the wealthy New York businessman, decides she wants to have a child with him. Unable to conceive at the age of 43, she and Marcus decide to use a surrogate and egg-donor . . . enter, Annie and Jules. Meanwhile, Bettina grows suspicious of India’s motives for wanting a child so late in life, and does some investigating, which produces alarming skeletons in India’s closet.

Weiner looks at surrogacy from a very different viewpoint in ‘Then Came You’. She could have gone a different route with this story – making the ‘barren’ parents into a gay couple, for instance. Instead she has botox-beauty, India, as the mummy-wannabe. And, it’s fair to say, India is not likable. We get chapters from each character’s point-of-view, and India doesn’t kid herself for one second that she’s interested in Marcus Croft beyond his bank balance and penthouse apartment;

He was fifty-five. That was older than I thought, but I could work with it. I figured that, barring an early and lucrative divorce, we could be man and wife for twenty years, and if he was considerate and didn’t linger, I'd have plenty of years to be a very merry widow.

Bettina is partially right in assuming that India wants a baby with Marcus to double her prenup payout if he should die or they divorce.

Likewise, Jules and Annie aren’t donating their eggs and wombs for completely moral and self-sacrifcing reasons. They are also motivated by money – Annie, for the home renovations and new clothes that $50,000 could buy, and Jules for the (slightly more) moral reason of getting her dad into rehab. Some readers may be aghast that Weiner is writing about surrogacy from a ‘grasping’ and greedy perspective. But, honestly, this is fairly realistic.

Surrogacy has become an industry just like any other; based around supply and demand. When science has stepped in and made having a baby easier than ever (provided you have the $$$) it’s no wonder that people’s motivations for entering into the programs have likewise become fueled by the green stuff.

I will admit, when so much of ‘Then Came You’ is based around monetary gains and less-than-altruistic reasons for bringing a baby into this world, I did begin to become a little disillusioned with the book. Weiner has a fairly bleak outlook on the whole baby-making machine that is surrogacy. And like I said, this would be a very different story if India and Marcus were a young gay couple hoping to conceive with a surrogate. But, actually, Weiner’s viewpoint is probably in the minority – and the themes and circumstances she’s exploring in ‘Then Came You’ are important to the debate on science and modern parenting.

I did grow to like the characters in the book. Annie, in particular, was a favourite. She has a very Midwestern viewpoint on love, marriage and family. She didn’t go to college, and abides by the rule that her husband wants dinner on the table promptly at four o’clock every evening. She likes to read, and once upon a time a sweet college boy she worked with encouraged her to read literary greats and modern classics, pushing herself to understand and appreciate them. But then her husband, Frank, but a stop to all that. But her husband isn’t tyrannical or abusive – they have a very sweet, tender romance that reads true. It’s just that Annie has never expected more for herself. I really liked this character, and thought she had the best (and clearest) evolution of any character in the book. I particularly liked her insights into the surrogacy program, when she was looking to be picked by a prospective parent and her worries about truthfulness on the surrogacy questionnaire form;

I'd been torn about dieting. On the one hand, maybe infertile women would want their surrogate to look robust and healthy, with broad shoulders and wide hips that evoked peasants in the field, squatting to give birth without missing a swing of their scythes. Then again, rich people hated fat people, maybe because they thought that being fat was the same as being lazy, or they were afraid of becoming fat themselves.

I liked Annie, and Jules also grew on me. As the novel progresses, Jules grapples with her awakening sexuality and sexual orientation. But bigger than that are her problems with her drug-addicted father. Jules’s scenes had me blubbering, and she was another interesting layer to this complex issue.

I had more of an issue with Bettina and India. It doesn’t help matters that both of these women are wealthy New Yorkers (one inherits her fortune, the other marries into it). I disliked Bettina immensely in the beginning (poor little rich girl), but as the novel progressed I came to understand and even like her character. She talks about her mother abandoning the family, and her father’s depression in the wake of divorce. But more importantly she reveals her own insecurities about people only liking her for her money (much the same way she suspects India only married her father for his fortune. . . )

India, on the other hand, I never grew to like. No matter how much sad backstory Weiner wrote for her, I just could not see beyond India’s botox and brow-lift. Sorry, I disliked her from beginning to end (and because of that, parts of the book were soured).

Jennifer Weiner is writing about a modern medical miracle from a very different viewpoint. She excels in writing between the lines, in the gray areas of ethics and moral conundrums. Regardless of what you feel about the characters (and their motivations) in ‘Then Came You’, this will nonetheless be a book to get you talking and thinking about ‘wombs for rent’.

3.5/5

Interview with Margo Lanagan, author of 'Sea Hearts'

I was lucky enough to receive an early copy of Margo Lanagan's new novel, 'Sea Hearts'. I devoured the book in one day, but was still thinking about the story days after reading the last line... I'm very happy (though not at all surprised) to start reading reviews full of praise for Lanagan's Gothic fairytale.

So of course I couldn't pass up the opportunity to interview the author herself. Asking her about Selkies, 'Singing My Sister Down' and "Snipers picking off clowns".

Many thanks to Allen & Unwin, and Margo Lanagan for taking the time to answer my questions!

All images used are from weheartit.com

♥

Q: How were you first published, agent or slush pile?

Neither. I was working as a freelance book editor when I wrote my "apprenticeship" teenage romances at the suggestion of one of the publishers I worked for. When I had written my first novel, a junior fantasy title, I submitted it directly to an editor I already knew from my editorial work. I had edged my way into the publishing world by other means before it hit me that I could actually be a writer myself.

Q: Are you a plotter or a ‘pantser’? – That is, do you meticulously plot your stories before writing, or do you ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ and let the story evolve naturally?

With novels, at first, I head off in a rush, very pantserishly, and just play for a while with what feel like the most fun beginning scenes. Once I've elaborated on them for a while, I reach a point where I really need to sit down and put the accumulated scene-bits into some sort of order so that they progress in a sensible way towards a climax (sometimes I have to do this with longer short stories, too). But I'll try to keep it fairly rough and flexible; too much planning and the writing itself becomes boring.

Short stories usually don't require much planning. I'll have the idea, and some vague notion of a climactic scene towards which the story's heading, and I can hold all that in my head and charge ahead without notes.

Q: Where do story ideas generally start for you? Do you first think of the character, theme, ending? Or is it just a free-fall?

They start with the germ of an idea that I've noted down, e.g. "Snipers picking off clowns" or "People buying silence in a can, jar, pill, or just downloading some". I'll cook this idea for a while (a day or two, or half an hour if I'm on a serious deadline!) until I've got a character with some kind of distinctive voice (or whose actions and thoughts I can relate in a distinctive voice) to pin the idea on, and a situation in which the idea makes sense (story-sense, I'm talking about, not real-world sense). I'll have something of an ending, but theme pretty much never comes into it. Theme grows all by itself, like a kind of mould or stain through the story, in the process of writing it.

Q: How do you tell the difference between which idea will be a short story, and which will evolve into a novel?

By the number of nodes it has, i.e. points where, when I poke it, story ideas fall out. A short story idea will generally consist of two half-ideas that come together to form a single node; a novel idea might be, for example, an existing traditional story (like the selkie stories for Sea Hearts, or like "Snow White and Rose Red" for Tender Morsels) that has many more nodes than can be utilised in a short story.

Q: How long did it take you to write ‘Sea Hearts’, from first idea to final manuscript?

I wrote it as a novella first, in about 8 weeks, in 2008. It took between 18 months and 2 years, on and off, to develop it to final-draft novel.

Q: I loved ‘Sea Hearts’ – and something I especially enjoyed was the fact that it’s a Fairytale/Fable from all sides. So we get the story from Rollrock’s ‘ witch’ Misskaella, as well as the bewitched men and even Selkie children. Did you always know that ‘Sea Hearts’ would be an all-encompassing narrative?

Yes, it pretty much had to have several narrators, because the Rollrock islanders, they're not very communicative people, and the matter of the selkies was shrouded in secrecy and shame. So if a character knew part of the story, he or she tended to keep it under his or her hat, and the only way to show it was to enter mind after mind and show its particular secret.

Q: Misskaella has become a new favourite character for me. She was wonderful and full of grey areas – the Rollrock ‘witch’, with her own reasons and tragedies for what she did to her island home. What was the hardest part about writing Misskaella’s story?

Deciding how much magic she could have probably presented the most difficulty. At first I made her a very powerful witch, with weather-changing and healing powers and attractive to all wild things. But her magic didn't work properly as a system until I decided that she would only have powers in relation to seals and selkies. I had to limit her to make her story—indeed, the whole story—manageable and coherent. (PS: I'm very fond of her too, the cranky, filthy old thing.)

Q: When did you first hear the tale of the Selkie legend? What is the appeal of this Scottish folklore for you?

I wouldn't be able to say when I first heard a selkie tale, but it would be in quite early childhood; when I did my small amount of research, all the different versions of the stories sounded familiar to me in a general way. I think the appeal of selkie stories lies in their romantic landscape of coasts and stormy seas; in their beauty (both the physical beauty of the seal-people and the attraction of the perfect love that selkie-people and their human partners enjoy); and in the insoluble problem at their centre, that selkies and humans cannot live comfortably together.

I think this central problem clearly refers to the difficulties humans and other humans have when they cohabit. Each person, the selkie tales' sub-text says, is a different species from from each other person; we can never quite come perfectly, permanently together. There will always be misunderstandings and missed connections, losses and pains.

Q: If you could put on the coat of any animal in the world, which animal would you choose to morph into?

Seals do look like fun, I have to admit, both for the swimming and for the sunbathing. I'd make sure I was a female seal, though; I'm not very interested in all that bellowing and bleeding that the seal-blokes do.

If I can tear my mind away from seals for a minute, though, I'm thinking I wouldn't mind being either some terrifically agile mammal (some kind of very swingy monkey), or a top-of-the-foodchain bird, like a sea-eagle.

Q: What was your geographical inspiration for the fictional Rollrock Island?

Roughly, the Outer Hebrides. But only very roughly, as I've never been there, and I didn't research them closely. There's definitely more Lanagan-land than real Hebrides in Rollrock.

Q: You gained real international acclaim for your short story ‘Singing My Sister Down’ (Black Juice, 2004). At the time, did you have any idea that that short story would be such a tour-de-force? And have you ever been tempted to expand on the story and turn it into a novel?

No, if I'd known how "Singing My Sister Down" would be received, I think I would have been totally paralysed by self-consciousness. But I wrote it in a notebook on the train on the way to work, over a couple of commutes; and it was one of those stories that just fell out all of a piece, and required almost no revision (you can see some of the changes from first draft to last over here).

I did start a novel that at the beginning was in the same world as "Singing", but it wandered off and never quite became anything. Well, never say never, eh? But I'd call it a "paused draft", and have no intention of going back to it any time soon.

Q: Your novels are released internationally to much critical acclaim. But what is ‘lost in translation’ between US and UK editions? And have you ever put your foot down to keep a particularly unique Australian reference?

I wouldn't say this is a problem with my two novels, as they're both based in European myth shared by a large enough proportion of the US and UK readership; they simply don't contain any direct references to Australia. With the short stories, I've sometimes had to clarify a turn of phrase or change things like "He's not as dim as he sims" to "He's not as dim as he sums" so as not to mystify US readers unacquainted with the dim sim. But no serious translation issues have arisen.

Q: You have written so many short stories – do you ever worry that the well will run dry on ideas? Do you have any tips or tricks for combating writers block, or getting a story started?

No, once you've got into the habit of collecting ideas, you quickly collect enough to last you several lifetimes - and then you collect more, because making an idea-note for an as-yet-untackled story is always more attractive than knuckling down to the third revision of the story you're supposed to be working on.

Writer's block and story-starting difficulties are different forms of anxiety. Breathe deeply, look the anxiety straight in the eye and tell it, "Yes, I see you, but I'm going to do this anyway." Then banish it from your mind and forge on until you relax and pick up the flow of the story you're working on.

Q: Some favourite author(s)?

Anne Tyler

George Saunders

Anne Enright

William Mayne

Kelly Link

Alan Garner

Jennifer Stevenson

W. G. Sebald

Gail Godwin

Ursula Dubosarsky

Q: Can you tell us what you’re working on next (and when we can expect it in our hot little hands?)

Another fantasy novel, set in mid-nineteenth-century Ireland and colonial New South Wales. It won't be out before next year, I'm thinking. Also, the Blue short story collection, which will be reprints, some of them re-worked, of my nastier stories published in anthologies. This collection will be clearly marked "Not Suitable For Children or Younger Young Adults".

Q: What advice do you have for budding young writers?

Read as much and as widely as you can - not just in the areas where you're already a fan but in new genres.

Don't just focus on "being a writer" and living in your own imagination - have another life, another career, that feeds into your writing by connecting you to the real world.

Write a lot, and again, write widely. Try lots of different ways to tell the stories, or communicate the impressions, that you carry around inside you. That way you'll find the forms that suit you.

'Sea Hearts' US cover

'The Scottish Prisoner' by Diana Gabaldon

Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

In this highly-anticipated new novel, Diana Gabaldon brings back one of her most compelling characters: the unforgettable Lord John Grey - soldier, gentleman and no mean hand with a blade. Set in the heart of the eighteenth century, Lord John's world is one of mystery and menace.

Diana Gabaldon brilliantly weaves together the strands of Lord John's secret and public lives. Capturing the lonely, tormented, and courageous career of a man who fights for his crown, his honor and his own secrets, Diana Gabaldon delivers breathtaking human drama, proving once again that she can bring history to life in a way few novelists ever have.

Jamie Fraser was a convicted Jacobite traitor and prisoner of Ardsmuir. Now he is on parole, working as a stable hand on the Helwater estate, for the English aristocratic Dunsany family.

But when an Irish stranger calls in the night, with talk of white roses and a renewed Jacobite uprising, Jamie’s quiet life on parole is turned upside down. . .

Lord John Grey has been tasked by his older brother to discover a plot of corruption and murder against a British officer, Major Gerald Siverly. But the only clue as to Siverly’s whereabouts is a cryptic poem, written in ‘erse’ – the Scottish tongue. And the only Scot John Grey knows is one Jamie Fraser, whom he met while he was Governor of Ardsmuir. But he and Mr Fraser did not part on good terms, and Grey is reluctant to be reacquainted with his old friend, now turned foe.

Grey’s brother, Hal, enlists the help of Jamie Fraser to assist on the hunt for Siverly. But it quickly becomes clear that this Jacobite hunt is mired in Ireland – the poem is not written in Scottish erse, but rather Irish Gaeilge. Even more curious, the poem tells tale of the ‘Wild Hunt’, an Irish folk legend.

Lord John Grey, Jamie Fraser and Grey’s trusty valet, Tom Byrd, set out to Ireland on a wild hunt that will lead them to conspiracy and murder. . .

‘The Scottish Prisoner’ is the fourth book in Diana Gabaldon’s ‘Lord John Grey’ series, which is itself a ‘spin-off’ of her wildly popular ‘Outlander’ series.

Diana Gabaldon’s first ‘Lord John Grey’ spin-off book was released in 2003. The spin-off was born when Ms Gabaldon was invited to contribute to a historical British crime stories anthology. As she explains, she didn’t want to write about any main ‘Outlander’ characters, but decided that Lord John was a suitably significant character in her main series, who was not always a key player. Thus, Lord John’s spin-off was born, and ‘Scottish Prisoner’ marks the fourth instalment, and also the most anticipated.

The three previous Lord John Grey books have not featured Jamie Fraser. The spin-off books have also not matched the timeline of the ‘Outlander’ books (‘The Private Matter’ was released before ‘The Fiery Cross’, while ‘Brotherhood of the Blade’ came out two years after ‘A Breath of Snow and Ashes’. Another reason, I’m sure, Ms Gabaldon didn’t wish to write a spin-off for a main ‘Outlander’ character. . . trying to keep parallel timelines would probably do her head in!). But, it became apparent to fans of ‘Lord John Grey’ and ‘Outlander’ that a significant overlap could occur – in that sad grey period of Jamie and Claire’s lives, between ‘Dragonfly in Amber’ and ‘Voyager’, when they were separated by time.

Diana Gabaldon’s ‘Outlander’ series is tricky and fantastic. Timelines curve and time spans – there are major time lapses in both Jamie and Claire’s lives. Jamie spent seven years hiding in a cave after the disaster of Culloden. Claire spent years studying medicine and raising her and Jamie’s daughter, Brianna. As readers, we were privy to snatches and samples of these times in Jamie and Claire’s lives apart in the third book, ‘Voyager’ (and a bit in the beginning of ‘Dragonfly in Amber’. . . see what I mean about time curving?)

Jamie also spent a good deal of time in Ardsmuir prisoner, where he first met Lord John Grey and formed a friendship that lasted until his parole on Helwater. . . whereupon Lord John, a homosexual (in times when sodomy was illegal) made advances to Jamie, and embarrassed them both. While at Helwater Jamie also had a disastrous liaison with the young mistress, Geneva Dunsany, resulting in the birth of his secretly illegitimate son, William. Eventually Lord John Grey would marry William’s aunt, Isobel, and adopt the boy as his own, partly because he knows what the boy means to Jamie and he vows to care for him (thereby winning Jamie’s loyalty and gratitude back).

Readers of ‘Outlander’ gathered all this information while reading ‘Voyager’, the third book in the ‘Outlander’ series which included Lord John Grey and Jamie Fraser’s impromptu meeting on the high seas (and John Grey meeting Jamie’s supposedly dead wife, Claire, for the first time).

But there was so much we didn’t know, in between. Thanks to Gabaldon’s tricky timelines, multiple plots and intense back-story, there was plenty of blanks in Jamie and Lord John’s history. There are also many blanks in Jamie’s progression from the young twenty-something in ‘Dragonfly’ to the man Claire meets after a long absence in ‘Voyager’.

That’s what ‘The Scottish Prisoner’ is – it’s the back-story and the in between. In this book we read part of Jamie’s progression to the man we have come to know and love, hinting at his transformation to Mac Dubh of the Ridge.

As in all the ‘Lord John Grey’ books, there is a ‘whodunit’ mystery plot, concerning Jacobites in Ireland. This is an interesting plot, and with Jamie and John Grey on the case, you better believe there’s lots of trickery and violence. But this Jacobite plot is most interesting for how it impacts on Jamie. He is in the middle of his Helwater parole and Culloden still haunts him. The last thing he wants is for all of this to resurface. But even more important is the fact that investigating this new Jacobite plot takes him away from Helwater, away from young Willie – his little boy who has just grown old enough to start playing with horses, and interacting with Jamie.

The only reason Jamie even agrees to travel to Ireland (with no intention of escaping) is because he knows he needs to return to Helwater and see out his parole. This is his only chance to be near his secret illegitimate son.

Fans of Diana Gabaldon know that herself writes grand historical adventures. Her books are meticulously researched and she beautifully conjures a sense of time and place with her evocative stories and endearing characters. But readers also know that Gabaldon is a master of romance – Jamie and Claire’s love has spanned seven books and evaded time. For this reason, some fans may be hesitant to read ‘Scottish Prisoner’ – a book with Jamie, but no Claire. And no ‘Outlander’ fan wants to read about Jamie coupling and courting with anyone other than his Sassenach (it was hard enough to read his encounters with Geneva and Mary McNab, no matter how innocent or regretted). Rest assured, Jamie remains true to his wife (despite some unsubtle advances). And even though there’s far less romance in this novel than in any of Gabaldon’s other novels, Claire is a heavy presence throughout the book. Jamie thinks of her, always. At this point of time he prays that Claire and his child (who he’s sure was a boy) went through the rocks safely and were carried back to her own time. Whenever Jamie thinks of her and the child (which is often) he sends out a silent prayer: “That she might be safe. She and the child.”

He hadn’t been able to avoid thinking of them, living in the cave on his own estate at Lallybroch, during the first years after Culloden. There was too little to occupy his mind, and they had crept in, his family, glimmering in the smoke when he sat by his wee fire – when he’d felt safe enough to have one – shining in the heavens, seeing the same stars that they must see, taking comfort in the everlasting light that lay softly on him and his.

Lord John Grey also learns more about Claire in this book. Not so much because Jamie opens up to him about missing his wife (he tells everyone he ‘lost’ her at Culloden), rather John Grey observes how thoughts of Claire weigh on Jamie’s mind. Their investigations into this Irish Jacobite plot conjure some hard memories for Jamie – memories of his time in France with Claire, and of his duel with ‘Black’ Jack Randall. Lord John Grey finds himself stumbling across little tells and hints of Jamie’s love and yearning for Claire, and it makes John green with envy;

He was turning to creep back toward the stairs, when he heard Fraser’s voice.
“Could I but lay my head in your lap, lass,” Fraser’s voice came softly through the door. “Feel your hand on me, and sleep wi’ the scent of you about me.”
Grey’s mouth was dry, his limbs frozen. He should not be hearing this, was suffused with shame to heart it, but dared not move for fear of making a sound.
There came a rustling, as of a large body turning violently in the bed, and then a muffled sound – a gasp, a sob? – and silence. He stood still, listening to his own heart, to the ticking of the longcase clock in the hall below, to the distant sounds of the house, settling for night. A minute, by counted seconds. Two. Three, and he lifted a foot, stepping quietly back. One more step, and then he heard a final murmur, a whisper so strangled that only the acuteness of his attention brought him the words.
“Christ, Sassenach, I need ye.”
He would in that moment have sold his soul to be able to offer comfort. But there was no comfort he could give, and he made his way silently down the stairs, missing the last step in the dark and coming down hard.

This is where Diana Gabaldon really excels – in writing these little tensions and unsaid conversations between her characters. As readers we know all that’s between the lines, and reading Jamie and Lord John dance around one another – around personal and political issues – makes for some truly delicious reading.

Something I especially loved in this book was the backstory to a recurring secondary character. We learn about Lord John Grey’s older brother, Hal, and the story of how he and his wife, Minnie, came to be married. I love, love, loved this backstory! It could be a book (novella? Short story?) unto itself, and I certainly hope that herself decides to write it! Minnie was a spy in France, and Hal met her when she was snooping through his desk . . . his discovery ended in a coupling, on the hearthrug. Delicious! Hal becomes infinitely more exciting with this backstory, and I want more!

I knew I would enjoy ‘The Scottish Prisoner’. Not least of all because the seventh ‘Outlander’ book came out in 2009, and Gabaldon has only recently guessed that the eighth book, ‘Written in my Own Heart’s Blood’, will be finished (hopefully) by the end of 2012, and (tentatively) released by the end of 2013. That’s another long wait between much-anticipated ‘Outlander’ books, so ‘Scottish Prisoner’ is a lovely book to tide fans over in the interim. And the fact that we get a long dose of beloved Jamie Fraser? Even better.

But more than anything, ‘The Scottish Prisoner’ is an important book in understanding the evolution of James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser. This book is the ‘in between’ of his life – when he’s no longer a prisoner, but not quite a free man. He is a new father, to Willie, but can never let this fact be known. And he learns the value of friendship and loyalty with the Englishman, Lord John Grey. I loved this book, as I knew I would, and even though there was no Claire, the love Jamie has for her is even more powerful for her absence and his constant yearning for her. A stunning novel from a true master storyteller.

5/5

'Fated' by Sarah Alderson

Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

What happens when you discover you aren't who you thought you were? When the person you love is the person who must betray you. If fate is already determined - can you fight it?
Lucas Gray is half Shadow Warrior, half human, and a member of the Brotherhood - a group of assassins tasked with killing the last purebred Hunter on Earth before she can fulfil a dangerous prophecy. The Hunter's name is Evie Tremain.

Evie Tremain is seventeen-years-old, a waitress and has just discovered she is the last in a long line of demon slayers - and an unwilling participant in a war between Hunters and unhumans that has raged for the last thousand years.

Evie Tremain is not having an easy time of it lately. She is still reeling from her best friend, Anna’s, recent death in a car accident. But even worse than that was learning that Anna and Evie's boyfriend, Tom, were seeing each other behind Evie’s back. Not to mention the fact that Tom was driving the night Anna died.

Evie’s pain is ten-fold, considering her father died two years ago and she was still succumbing to the loss when Anna died and her betrayal was revealed. So the last thing Evie needs is a late-night robbery at the diner where she works…

Except these aren’t your run-of-the-mill thugs. There’s a boy with red eyes and a whipping tail, a green-tinged girl and a young man with yellow fangs. Evie can’t believe her eyes when she’s attacked by this motley crew of freaks late one night. Even more amazing is when the new stranger to town, Victor, comes to her rescue brandishing a gun.

But Evie had better start believing, because as Victor explains to her, Evie is a hunter linked to the White Light prophecy. He explains about veiled worlds where demons lurk – poison skinned Mixen and vampires called Thirsters. And these creatures want to take earth for their own. All that stands between us and them is the Hunters. Evie’s biological parents were killed by one of these ‘unhuman’ creatures, a Shadow Warrior. And now it’s up to Evie to seek revenge for their murder.

While Evie learns about her heritage and the dangerous fate that awaits her, Lucas looks on. He is an unhuman – half Shadow Warrior – and he has been tasked with watching and monitoring Evie’s training progress. But the more Lucas watches from the shadows, the more he wants to get to know Evie…

‘Fated’ is the first book in a new young adult paranormal series by Sarah Alderson.

Alderson blew me away last year with her gripping supernatural novel, ‘Hunting Lila’. So of course I jumped at the chance to read more by this talented new author.

‘Fated’ is more of the same action-packed helter-skelter supernatural thrill riding that Alderson excelled at in ‘Hunting Lila’. Except this time the cast of supernatural characters is a little more traditionally monster-ish. Alderson’s ‘monsters’ are a mixture of traditional and imaginative. The poison-skinned Mixen girl is a wonderful creation – flouncing around in a tight, pink mini which clashes with her deadly green skin. Some of Alderson’s characters are new twists on old legends, like the ‘Thirster’, or as we know them; vampire (an unhuman species who have very good PR lending them their ‘romantic’ persona in pop culture!).

“Are you trying to tell me that was Edward Cullen outside? Because you know, I thought he was supposed to be hotter than that. And a whole lot more romantic.”

But the real draw-card of this series is the star-crossed forbidden love of Evie and Lucas. Evie, who has only just discovered the unhuman realm and her destiny defeating it, and Lucas, a Shadow Warrior tasked with watching over Evie … until the time comes that he must kill her. As a Shadow Warrior, Lucas can disappear at will and so he watches Evie from the shadows, slowly falling in love with her while observing quietly intimate moments that have him questioning all he knows about the 'evil' Hunters ...

She was staring right at him but then she frowned before screwing her eyes shut again. He melted backwards and when she opened her eyes again he saw the confusion as she stared at the empty space around her.
And then in a move he couldn’t have foreseen she hurled the circular blade right at him. It grazed the air a millimetre to his left. Damn it. She was aware of him. She was feeling him.

I did like Lucas and Evie, even if their romance felt a little rushed. Lucas is posing as a renter at Evie’s house, where she lives with her mother. Their romance is also sped-up by the side-story about Evie’s cheating ex, who rouses Lucas’s instinctually possessive feelings towards Evie. I know the plot conveniently threw Evie and Lucas into close-quarters, and had them sharing intimate details (when Evie explains about her break-up with Tom) but I was still feeling a little whip-lashed by their romance. However, the great ending did give me high-hopes that the Evie and Lucas romantic saga will get exponentially more interesting and heated in upcoming books. I can’t wait!

Overall I really enjoyed ‘Fated’. Sarah Alderson is definitely cementing her paranormal place with this second action-packed blockbuster of a book. I look forward to reading more!

4/5

'Alien Diplomacy' Katherine "Kitty" Katt #5 by Gini Koch

Received from the Author

From the BLURB:

Being newlyweds and new parents is challenging enough. But Jeff and Kitty Martini are also giving up their roles as super-being exterminators and Commanders in Centaurion Division while mastering the political landscape as the new heads of Centaurion's Diplomatic Corps. Enter a shadowy assassination plot and a new set of anti-alien conspirators, and nothing will ever be the same...

Katherine ‘Kitty’ Katt isn’t fitting too comfortably into her new role as Mrs. Martini. Ever since Jeff became an ambassador, Kitty has had to swap her favourite band t-shirts for frocks, and learn how to host dignified soirees instead of her much preferred rock-fests. But Kitty is trying – she is attending a ‘Washington Wife’ class and learning the proper way to meet and greet Russian dignitaries without embarrassing Jeff or her fellow countrymen.

As hard as being a perfect little wifey is for Kitty, she and Jeff have both found their feet as parents to little Jamie (affectionately known as Jamie-Kat). Baby Jamie is doted on by the whole of the Centaurion Division, not to mention her friends in the C.I.A. and her powerful royal (and deadly) grandparents.

But all is not well in Washington. The President’s Ball looms, and on top of learning how to dance, avoid enraging the Koreans and needing to pick out a killer (but classy) dress, Kitty and Martini are hearing rumours that there’s going to be violence at the Ball, against an unknown target.

Assassins are swarming Washington, and already Kitty and Jamie have been caught in the crosshairs . . . but are they the targets?

‘Alien Diplomacy’ is the fifth book in Gini Koch’s explosive space opera ‘Katherine “Kitty” Katt’ series.

Gini Koch’s beloved sci-fi series has hit so many high-notes in recent books that fans could be forgiven for thinking that things might calm down in this fifth instalment . . . after all, how could Ms Koch possibly compete with some of the jaw-dropping, pedal-to-the-metal helter-skletering plots of yesteryear? ‘Alien in the Family’ included a wild wedding, while ‘Alien Proliferation’ welcomed the birth of a much-anticipated alien-human bubs. Some may think that ‘Alien Diplomacy’ is the come down, if you like, from all those larger-than-life plots and story thrill rides. But fans should not be deterred or concerned, because Jeff and Kitty are not settling into sedate family life just yet . . . not when assassins are descending on Washington and Jamie-Kat is showing every sign of being an above-average A-C baby.

I got the Long-Suffering Doctor look. "You, Jamie, and Jeff are scheduled for tests today."
We were? "Tests? What tests?"
He gave the Long-Suffering Doctor sigh. "The standard tests we do monthly to ensure the three of you are ... progressing properly."
"Oh, you mean the ones where we make sure we're still more like the X-Men than the Thing?"

The central focus of ‘Diplomacy’ is on the rumour of an assassination attempt, planned for the President’s Ball against an unknown target (though common sense points to the president. . . ) but when Jamie and Kitty get caught up in the assassination plot, everybody starts second-guessing the original targets.

This central ‘whodunit’ storyline is pretty intense, and will keep you guessing. But as well as offering up an adrenaline shot, the plot also serves to introduce readers to Jeff and Kitty’s new Washington setting (what with Jeff being an ambassador and all). We learn just how badly Kitty is fitting into her post-pregnancy time off . . . floating between ‘Washington Wife’ and a ‘Mummy and Me’ class. It’s safe to say that our girl Kitty is missing the good old days of screaming Aerosmith while pumping some fuglies full of lead (and hairspray). I loved the fact that just because our heroine got her happily-ever-after (complete with handsome hubby and sweet baby girl) it doesn’t mean she wants to stop kicking ass. And ‘Diplomacy’ is really about Kitty’s push-and-pull, between her duties as a wife and mother, and her urge to be out in the field watching Jeff’s back and saving the world.

‘Diplomacy’ continues to expand on Koch’s fantastical world. We meet a great cast of new characters like the mysterious Malcolm Buchanan, and we revisit some old favourites (including Kyle and Len, reformed football players, now bodyguards). We also meet someone from Kitty’s past, her old sorority sister Caroline Chase, who has some hilarious stories to share about Kitty’s college years;

Caroline stared at me. "You married a space alien?" she asked finally.
I gave her a bright smile. "Jeff was born on Earth. He's a legal U.S. resident with all the rights thereof. And he's a prince." Hey, it had mattered to my other sorority sisters.
Caroline shook her head. "You never change."
"I didn't date aliens before!"
"Or royalty. However, if there was a way to work in the bizarre naturally, you were always our go-to girl."

And for those of you who were cheering and fist-pumping at the revelations in ‘Proliferation’, concerning Christopher’s character . . . rest assured, Amy is sticking around and there’s a very sweet scene towards the end of ‘Diplomacy’ – I love these two!

Gini Koch’s fifth ‘Katherine “Kitty” Katt’ is a wonderful instalment in this kick-butt series. Our girl Kitty may be happily settled down with a (sexy) ball and chain, she may be loving motherhood and ‘Mummy and Me’ time. . . but that doesn’t mean she isn’t hankering for an ass-kickin’, and ‘Diplomacy’ is really all about her conflicting emotions between being a mother and being a hero. Another awesome instalment in an incredible series, and proof-positive that even when the story includes diaper-changes and poof baby bodyguards, Koch still has plenty of action and adventure for Jeff and Kitty!

5/5

'Born Wicked' The Cahill Witch Chronicles #1 by Jessica Spotswood

Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

Our mother was a witch too, but she hid it better.
I miss her.

To me, the magic feels like a curse. According to the Brothers, it's devil-sent. Women who can do magic-they're either mad or wicked. So I will do everything in my power to protect myself and my sisters. Even if it means giving up my life - and my true love.

Because if the Brothers discover our secret, we're destined for the asylum, or prison . . . or death.

The Cahill sisters are witches. Cate, Tess and Maura are all that’s left of their mother’s witchy legacy – and it’s up to eldest, Cate, to keep their magic a secret, lest the Brotherhood discover their ‘talents’. Young girls in the village disappear if the Brotherhood even suspects they have an inkling of magic – they get bundled off and are never seen or heard from again. Cate cannot think of a worse fate for her beloved sisters – but young Tess and middle-child Maura are both tempting fate with how much magic they use, and how powerful they are becoming.

Worse than trying to keep her sister’s magic in line, Cate’s father has now got it into his head (courtesy of their busy-body neighbour, Mrs. Corbett) that the girl’s need a governess and Cate must start looking for a suitable union with a nice young man.

Miss Elena comes to take care of the girls when their father takes yet another long trip to New England. But Elena’s arrival seems to coincidentally trigger a series of events . . . the son of the bookshop owner, Finn Belastra, is the new gardener, and Cate finds herself mesmerized by his kind eyes and thoughtful conversations. At the same time, her childhood friend and next-door-neighbour, Paul McLeod, returns to town after a long absence at University . . . and he seems to have every intention of asking for Cate’s hand in marriage. But even more perplexing than all this is Cate’s discovery of her mother’s diary, which makes mention of a woman named Zara who was taken by the brotherhood many years ago. . .

There’s magic in the air and it’s all converging around the Cahill sisters.

‘Born Wicked’ is the first book in debut author Jessica Spotswood’s paranormal YA series ‘The Cahill Witch Chronicles’.

Spotswood’s debut is ‘Little Women’ meets ‘Practical Magic’ with a dash of ‘The Crucible’. The novel is set in early 20th century New England, in an alternate history where the Brotherhood rule and magic is forbidden and snuffed out. Cate is our narrator in this first novel, and she feels the burden of being eldest sister and substitute mother to her two sisters.

Cate misses her mother terribly, but is determined to uphold the promise she made on her deathbed – to protect her sister’s and mind their magic. But Tess and Maura are more powerful than Cate ever was at their age, and she is feeling the strain of reining them in . . . particularly when they insist on using their magic in broad daylight, without a care to the Brotherhood sniffing around. But Cate also feels the burden of being the eldest Cahill, and expected to marry. Matters are not helped when their nosy next-door neighbour takes it upon herself to help in the girl’s mothering, and suggest a thing or two about Cate’s impending womanhood;

'You're of an age to be thinking about your future now, yours and Miss Maura's. Your intention ceremony is coming up soon. It won't be long before you'll have to make your choice: marry and raise a family, Lord willing, or join the Sisterhood.'
I fiddle with the gold tassels on the lamp shade, a flush rising on my cheeks. 'I'm well aware of my choices.' As if I could forget. It feels like I spend half my days batting the fear away, refusing to let the rising panic consume me.
'Well, you may not be aware that you girls are getting a reputation. As—eccentrics. Bluestockings. Miss Maura more so than you—she's always got her nose in a book, doesn't she? Always popping in and out of that bookshop. You two don't go visiting or receive callers. It's understandable, without any mother to guide you—' Mrs. Corbett looks sadly at Father. 'But regrettable. I thought it my neighborly duty to tell your father what I've been hearing.'

On the eve of their new governess’s arrival, two boys enter Cate’s life. Son of the local bookshop owner, Finn, and Cate’s childhood friend (and secret crush) Paul McLeod. With the Brotherhood closing in and her mother’s mysterious witchy friend, Zara, in the back of her mind, Cate’s life spirals wonderfully and dangerously out of her control. . .

Spotswood has written a wholly original and tantalizing new paranormal YA series. I loved the historic setting of ‘Born Wicked’ – it puts an entirely new spin on the ‘witchy’ concepts by setting the book in the early 20th century, in a conservative New England town. The novel has hints of the Salem Witch trials, but also reads a bit like a Louisa May Alcott novel for the wonderful language and conflicting genteel sensibilities. There’s an inherent dichotomy in the Cahill characters, when they are indeed powerful witches who can use magic to warp seasons and command minds – but they are being brought up to be lovely young misses, minding their manners and hunting for a husband.

There’s a mystery woven throughout this first novel (which will have ramifications on further instalments) regarding the diary of the girl’s dead mother, and mention of a powerful and exiled witch called Zara. But as Cate tries to unravel this mystery (while also avoiding detection by the Brotherhood) her heart becomes divided between gardener Finn, and childhood crush, Paul. I will say that in this novel I wished there was more focus on the magic, and less on the romance (crazy, I know!) only because Cate is a rather conservative, straight-and-narrow character to begin with, and reading her somewhat tepid romance with both boys was nothing compared to the grand magic plot.

My favourite character is, without a doubt, middle-sister Maura. If Spotswood is a modern-day, genre-bending Louisa May Alcott, then Maura is her Jo March. She’s bookish and combative, not terribly interested in boys and finery but consumed by her magic. I loved Maura, I think she’s going to be a real fire-cracker and I really, really hope we get to read a book from her perspective (and the boy who will capture her heart?). Unfortunately, by contrast, Cate is the ‘Meg March’ of the Cahill sisters – and even though she became vastly more interesting towards the end, I couldn’t quite shake the ‘boring older sister’ label for her in comparison to vivacious and scandalous Maura and Tess (Amy March?).

I really enjoyed ‘Born Wicked’. The ending is a big surprise, and opens Spotswood’s world up for a long and twisting series . . . I do hope we get alternative POV books, and we don’t just stick with Cate, but either way I’ll happily go along for the ride and revisit the Cahill Sisters of New England.

4.5/5

'Sea Hearts' by Margo Lanagan

Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

'Why would I? People are uneasy enough with me - if I start bringing up sea-wives, they'll take against me good and proper.'
'It could be secret.'
'Could it?'

On remote Rollrock Island, the sea-witch Misskaella discovers she can draw a girl from the heart of a seal. So, for a price, any man might buy himself a bride; an irresistibly enchanting sea-wife. But what cost will be borne by the people of Rollrock - the men, the women, the children - once Misskaella sets her heart on doing such a thing?

Margo Lanagan weaves an extraordinary tale of desire and revenge, of loyalty, heartache and human weakness, and of the unforeseen consequences of all-consuming love.

There are rumours about Rollrock Island. Mainlanders claim that the small, remote island is populated with impossibly beautiful women … mams and wives with silken hair and long limbs, lips you could lose yourself in and fathomless eyes. They say these women came from the sea – conjured by a witch for the Rollrock men to bed and wed. Rumour has it that these sea-maidens wash ashore and bewitch men, stealing husbands and suitors alike.

But the Rollrock women are curious creatures. Born of the sea, they came conjured from the skins of seals. Their coats were taken by men to keep them ashore, to keep them from returning to their watery freedom.

Beware Rollrock Island, they say. You must wear a cross on your back to avoid sea-maiden temptation. And don’t send your beloved betrothed to the island for anything – for he won’t come back the same and smitten with you.

‘Sea Hearts’ ('The Brides of Rollrock Island' in the US) is the new novel from Australian author, Margo Lanagan.

This novel is absolutely divine. In ‘Sea Hearts’ Lanagan is writing a new Fairytale addition to the old Selkie legend. Scottish in origin, and supposedly beginning on the Orkney and Shetland Islands, the Selkie story concerns women who masquerade as seals (and vice versa). They are inhumanly beautiful and mystifying – in some legends they shed their seal coats and tempt men to their beds, only to vanish by daylight. In others, the mysterious women live amongst us, perfectly normal until the day that the sea’s pull is too much and they leave all behind (even children and husbands). In ‘Sea Hearts’, Lanagan weaves a far more delicious and dastardly tale about these Selkie sea-maidens …

Set on the fictional island of Rollrock, the book follows a cast of islanders as they encounter the Selkie legend of their home. Daniel Mallett is a happy young boy who collects sea-hearts for his mam to cook up. He and his other friends (all boys) play on the rocks of the island’s namesake and do their best to avoid the local witch, Misskaella. But Daniel and his friends feel a secret closing in on them … to do with the lack of girl children, and the odd barking language their mams converse in when they’re ritually bathing by the rocks.

After Daniel, the book’s narrative recedes, ebbs and flows; like the tide coming in. Lanagan takes us back to the beginnings of the Rollrock mystery, where we meet Bet Winch, a young girl whose older brother has gone missing. His new wife comes calling, looking for her Nase, needing help with the two babies they have at home. But Bet and her mother discover the young man in an abandoned cottage, holed up with an incomparably beautiful woman who smells like the enticing ocean.

Dominic Mallett was bundled off his native Rollrock Island after his da’s death. For years he lived on the mainland, and is even betrothed to a mainland girl. But he has to return to Rollrock for sentimental souvenirs, and though his fiancée is reluctant to see him venture back to the island of his childhood, he promises he will return in time for their wedding. Nothing shall keep him from her.

And then there’s Misskaella Prout – she is the book’s hinge, the beginning of the Rollrock legend and resident island witch. We meet Misskaella as a young, fat girl – living with a loveless ma and siblings as mean as snakes. The family don’t think much of Misskaella, and the villagers even less. But there is something special about this young girl … she brings the seals from the rocks. One day these great, lumbering beasts crawl to town. Their heads swivel when she passes, and they congregate around her family’s house. Misskaella is told to wear a bandaged cross on her back, to ward off the seals. Because Misskaella has a gift, and if she’s not careful, terrible things will come of her power to call.

Growing into a bitter and shrewd woman, Misskaella puts her ‘gift’ to good use, and starts calling Selkie sea-maidens from their coats, to be married to Rollrock men – for a price.

Any man seeing this maiden's lips would want to lay kisses on them; he would want to roll in the cushions of those lips, swim the depths of those eyes, run his hands down the long foreign lengths of this girl. Oh, I thought, women of Rollrock, you are nothing now.

Margo Lanagan’s novel is divine. She has written a fairytale from all sides – the witch who birthed the legend, the men spelled, stranded sea-maidens, right down to the children born of the mythological creatures. These multiple perspectives make for a delicious and fanciful tale, but my favourite was Misskaella’s. Without her point of view we may have been made to think she was simply an evil ‘witch’, just as the residents of Rollrock do. But Lanagan allows us a glimpse into Miss’s sad childhood, her weird and wonderful connection with seal magic, even exploring her own doomed fate with the Selkie magic. Misskaella is a wonderfully tangled character; almost Shakespearean for the way her own magic turns in on itself.

‘Sea Hearts’ is a divinely lyrical retelling of an old myth. A Selkie fairytale narrated by all the players – from the witch to the cursed men, the stolen sea-maidens and the cubs they birthed. Lanagan’s tale is fanciful and Gothic, hauntingly complex and utterly beautiful.

5/5