Katie Stew

This was not a big writing month for me. The last two weeks we’ve been living on these awesome spring rolls and I haven’t been cooking anything new. But, I am excited about the encroaching fall and want to start making soups and casseroles and pot roasts.

I’ve also been reading a lot, as always. About a month ago my mom started nudging me about reading this new book, “A Discovery of Witches”, saying it was great fun. I picked it up and then I couldn’t put it down.

Deborah Harkness’s book was a seriously fun time. The story follows Diana Bishop, a historian that happens to be from a long line of very talented witches. After the tragic death of her magical parents at a young age, she has turned her back on the family craft. Now as an adult, the key to her magic and her family’s unfortunate turn falls into her lap. At the same time, she encounters Matthew Clairmont, a 1,500 year old vampire who wants something that she has, only to find out that he might want much more.

The first few pages in I thought that I had fallen into something too cheesy to get into. A few pages more and I realized that there was more to it than I would have imagined. This is a world with witches, vampires, and daemons living in secrecy. It is a story filled with history, science, and adventure. It was great fun to watch the creatures who should be enemies fall for each other. They have to go against their own kinds and their own histories to be together.

It was an excellent time. And of course, as soon as I finished it, I had to pick up the sequel, Shadow of Night.

In this book, Matthew and Diana decide that to find a witch powerful and knowledgeable enough to be a proper teacher for Diana, and to hide from the new enemies they have created, they must go back in time to hide out. This story takes place in Elizabethan England. They meet many fun historical figures and continue to get themselves in constant trouble, all the while entwining themselves even deeper together. It was a great follow up book and I look forward to the last in the trilogy.

Think of this series as Twilight for grownups. These aren’t angsty teens, but adult people making reasonable (usually) decisions. It was great fun and even if it isn’t a great work of literature, the books are very well researched, being written by an actual historian and all. This gives them a depth that you don’t often find in the fantasy genre.

Pick this up to enjoy on one of these chilly fall afternoons, curled up in your favorite chair with a cup of something warm.

I recently finished “The Great Santini” by Pat Conroy. This is the fourth book of Conroy’s that I have read. Reading Pat Conroy is an immersive experience. He makes you want to move to the South. He makes you smell the flowers in bloom, taste the salt in the air and embrace the feel of an oyster sliding down your throat that you just caught and popped open from the salt marsh. Pat Conroy is a man in love with the South and he makes you understand that and feel it too.

Conroy published this book in 1976. It is based on his experience growing up in a military family. The patriarch of the family in the book is Bull Meecham, who is based on Conroy’s own father. Bull is a fighter pilot who runs his family with as tight a fist as he runs his flight squad. The story alternates mostly between Bull and his son Ben. Their relationship is hard. Ben alternates between hating and loving his father. The story explores that relationship and how Bull Meecham, who calls himself “The Great Santini” affects all those around him with his powerful personality. It is a story about the man that Bull Meecham is and the man that Ben is becoming and how one can affect the other.

As with all of Conroy’s stories, it is both beautiful and dark, lovely and sad. It is not my favorite book of his that I have read. That is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it, because I did, but the thing that I love about his other books is how everything ties together. Each interaction that each character has, each side story, reflects a deeper meaning and revelation to the story. With this book, I thought it lacked some of the nuance of his other works. Some things happened and they didn’t seem in the end to have much to do with the final point, which I found disappointing.

Beach Music was an amazing book of his that I highly recommend. The Prince of Tides is another. And if you want a cookbook that is also a fun and wonderful story book, try out The Pat Conroy Cookbook.

“The Great Santini” is significantly shorter than “Beach Music” or “The Prince of Tides” and it is a nice story. It could be a good intro to his writing, but it is missing the depth that comes out in the other books for me. If you want a short intro, check out the cookbook. But whatever one you choose to start with, just start. Pat Conroy might just change your world.

Kushiel’s Avatar is the third book in the Kushiel’s Legacy trilogy by Jacqueline Carey. After reading the first one, Kushiel’s Dart, I became entranced and have now finished the series. Unfortunately, I think that this book is my least favorite in the series, though it had many things that I loved.

The cover is not one of the things that I loved. I mean, really?

Anyways, the reason that this is my least favorite is because it is the darkest. Sure, it ends full of goodness and light, but it is a dark road that Phedre and Joscelin walk to get there.

Spoilers: The story begins when Phedre is called by Melisande to La Serrinissima, where she is in exhile. Her long hidden son has gone missing. Her spies have turned nothing up and she asks Phedre to search for him. Though they are enemies, Phedre is the only one she trusts to find him.

Phedre is also still searching for a way to free Hyancinthe from his curse. Melisande will give her a key to that search if she will help find her son. The dark road that Phedre walks leads her to an evil kingdom and puts her at the whims of an evil and insane ruler. The motto of the dark religion practiced there is “Ill words. Ill thoughts. Ill deeds.” This section of the book was deeply disturbing. Reading what all the characters go through and the dark places Phedre finds in her soul was hard. It wasn’t the pleasure cruise, adventure read that the books had been to this point. I didn’t want to read any more. I thought about stopping a time or two, but I knew things had to get better. And they did.

The rest of the book is a much more fun and relaxing adventure, though all the characters are still in shock and need time to recover after their horrible ordeal. Of course, it turns out that they had to go through the darkness to enter the light. Everything works out just fine and it is a rewarding end. I wish that I could have just read the second half of the book. Old characters are reunited. Phedre and Joscelin find the family they never knew they wanted and all is well with the world.

And their story ends, just as another begins. I don’t know if I’ll read the next trilogy that is connected to the story or not. I suppose time will tell. For now I am going to let this story rest. The characters could use a good rest after this last book. It was a satisfying end to the series for the most part, but if you aren’t interested in going to some very dark places with these characters, call it quits after book two. You probably won’t mind that you did.

Kushiel’s Chosen is the second book in the Kushiel’s Legacy trilogy by Jacqueline Carey. It was a rip roaring good time. I think it is the most straight up adventure story of the series and was a lot of fun to read.

At the end of the first book, Melisande is on the loose after the battle of Troys-Le-Mont. That means that there must be a traitor in their midst. Someone helped her to escape. Someone close to the queen. Someone they trust.

Phedre decides to ferret out the traitor. She goes on a wild and high flying adventure to find Melisande, but it is an adventure that no one could guess the end to. As the prophet tells her, “You will find her in the last place you look.” And boy is that the truth.

Phedre explores a number of new cities and countries, is ransomed by a dashing and famous pirate, is held captive in the most infamous prison in this world, speaks as the voice of a God, and has a million adventures in between. This was a fun one in the series. An excellent follow up to the first book, and as I felt with the first book, it ended solidly. I was drawn to the third book, but not because I was left hanging, but simply because I wanted more.

This month for Book Club, we read “Kushiel’s Dart” by Jacqueline Carey. First of all, when we select books for the club, we usually try and pick relatively short books, as we only have a month to read them. I suppose no one asked when this one was nominated and when it showed up in the mail from Amazon, I was shocked to pick up an epic book that was a whopping 900+ pages. But, I like to read so I got going.

To be honest, I was about 50 pages in before I started caring about the book much and was about 200 before I was really hooked. It takes a while to set up the story when you’re writing a book this large I suppose. But once it got me, it got me good.

Kushiel’s Dart is the story of a young woman, Phedré, who is one of the chosen of the gods. She was pricked by the dart of Kushiel, one of the angels in their religious pantheon, who is characterized as the one who brings redemption to his followers through punishment. This means that Phedré is cursed and blessed as Kushiel’s Chosen to experience pleasure through pain. She is trained from a young age to be a servant of Naamah, the Angel who served their Chosen, Elua, by sleeping with those necessary to keep Elua safe. (Its hard to sum up a fantasy civilization’s mythology in a few sentences!)

The basic premise of their religion is “Love as thou wilt”. As Phedré is a servent of Naamah, basically, Phedre is trained to be a prostitute of god. However, her patron and mentor DeLauney also trains her to be a spy. Through the story, she encounters plots, riddles, betrayals, and adventures galore. She finds herself in all kinds of exciting circumstances and interesting places. What starts as a bizarre and slightly smutty book becomes one of daring and intrigue. I honestly didn’t think I’d like the book, but ended up loving it. Phedré is a cunning and brave heroine that is really enjoyable to follow.

Seriously though, who designed this cover? It’s just awful.

A number of people in the book club have said they don’t want to read it on the bus because of the cover. But you know the old saying, don’t judge a book by its cover.

I was pretty far in the book before I learned this was part of a series. Often, I find that books in series are frustrating because they leave you hanging on the story. They want you to pick up the next book, so they don’t wrap things up for you. The Game of Thrones series is really terrible about doing this. So, I was really thrilled to come to the end of this book and find the story nicely wrapped up. Sure, there were some things left that made me excited to pick up the next one (which I’ve done), but I didn’t have to. I knew where everyone was at the end and what they were about and it was very comforting.

If you’re looking for an epic story of politics, sex, love, war, betrayal, and adventure. This is a good one. You’ll have a nice view into this fantasy world, traveling to numerous countries, seeing different peoples, watching dark prophesies unfold. You’ll read about a beautiful civilization full of structure with the D’Angelines, be stuck in a snowy wilderness among the Skaldi, and escape to have exciting adventures at sea, challenging the Master of the Straits and visiting another far off land before returning to a home where everything has changed.

This read is all across the map, in a really satisfying way. The reviews across the book club were all good. People enjoyed this read.