Farewell from Kimber An until February 7th

Kimber An is moving house and will be off-line from February 1st through February 7th. I will be checking email from the public library a couple of times though.
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Lady Bronco will be back with a book review this Sunday, February 3rd. So, please stop by then!
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Kimber An will not be posting a book review next Thursday, February 7th.
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I was scheduled to review THE PIRATE OF PANTHER BAY today, but it's not gonna happen. I'm only 15 pages in. So far, very good. I'm sorry I'm just too insanely busy this week. Here's the link in case you want to learn more on your own: http://www.pantherbay.com/
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In the meantime, pop over to http://starcaptainsdaughter.blogspot.com/ for a link to a YouTube video which I, personally, find hysterically funny. Faretheewell!
:o)

ENDLESS UNIVERSE by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Ha! Didn't expect a book review on a Saturday. Did ya?
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Well, I picked up this little gem at the used bookstore and it's only 26 years young. I've been meaning to read a little Marion Zimmer Bradley for a while. All I had to do was thumb through this one and see the word 'babies' and I was hooked.
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At first, I was a little put off. The Explorers are leaving a planet and the protagonist is bitter over a broken love affair. The person in charge of their starship's nursery sends him on a mission to buy a half dozen babies. I was curious enough to keep going. Doran transmits to a planet where babies are sold out of a warehouse. They're kept in special containers which feed, clean, and entertain them until they are sold. The seller's only ethic is he won't sell them for food.
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Through the course of the baby-buying and bringing back, I learned the Explorers are sterile. The reason they're 'buying' is because babies are not place for adoption. Instead of abortion or contraception, babies are sold from the womb like animals. But, to the Explorers, the babies are their precious children and their future.
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Sterility is just one sacrifice the Explorers make to do what they do. They have to undergo special adaptations to cope with hyperspace travel. As the story went along, I realized how lonely they were, how homesick. Yet, re-joining people living dirtside is very difficult for them.
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Doran becomes attached to one of the babies and wonders if that's what it's like to be a father. Even though he's young, he's made captain through the casting of lots. Likewise, the babies are raised communal-like. I was about to throw the book against the wall if the author was going to present that as the ideal way to raise human babies. She doesn't. Like regular humans, the Explorers developed this method of parenting over the course of hundreds of years.
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While the humans provide medical care, personal attachment care in the first months, and regularly volunteer in the Nursery, the children are primarily cared for by the Poohbears. No one knows why they're called Poohbears, except that they're big and furry. They're extremely long-lived and no one knows where they came from. They've always lived with the Explorers on their starships and worked as the childcare providers.
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The plot of the story centers on the Explorer's survival as a people and a culture when they cannot procreate. A series of tragedies results in deaths which leaves the starship short-handed and the children can't grow up fast enough to replace them. They're faced with their own extinction. They have to decide whether to live dirtside or join up with another Explorer ship and crew. Either choice is gut-wrenching for them. Their starship, the Gypsy Moth, is their universe, their family, their culture. Accepting the presence of others and adapting to working with others, even if they are Explorers too, is extremely disconcerting for them. I won't tell you what they decide.
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This was a fabulous start for me with the novels of Marion Zimmer Bradley. I usually take a week to read a book in between everything else I do in my uber-schedule. ENDLESS UNIVERSE took three hours and that's why I'm telling you about it on a Saturday instead of a Thursday. Marion Zimmer Bradley has been around for decades. You can find her books in any bookstore or library.
:o)

CRUSADER'S LADY by Lynna Banning

I found this little gem over at Michelle Moran's http://historicalfictionauthorinterviews.blogspot.com/ so I knew it couldn't be a Standard Issue Romance Novel. Michelle's the author of NEFERTITI, after all, Enduring Romance's Book of the Year for 2007.
If you liked KINGDOM OF HEAVEN with Orlando Bloom and Liam Neesun, but wished the heroine got to have more adventures and romance this is the book for you. As a sidenote, I think they killed off Liam's character too soon, but you know me. Sigh.
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Anyway, back to CRUSADER'S LADY. Marc is a knight sick of war in the middle of the Crusades. He's an honorable knight though and is sickened when he accidentally kills an unarmed Arab near his camp one knight. Then, King Richard wants his protection on his trip back to jerk Prince John out of his throne in England. Well, at least, he'll get to go home, which is actually Scotland. (They're men, they're men in kilts, KILTS! KILTS!) (sorry)
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What Marc doesn't realize is the slain unarmed Arab was Soraya's honorary uncle and they were on a mission to deliver a message from the great leader Saladin to the king of the English. More than that, when Soraya witnesses Marc killing her uncle Khalil, she swears revenge. Dressed as a servent boy, she latches onto Marc, pretending to become his servent, all the while planning to kill him at the first opportunity. And so now she's on her way to England too. Her plans get derailed as she realizes Marc's an honorable man. She gets seasick too, which makes it rather difficult to plunge a dagger into Marc's gut. Oh, and she sees him butt-naked as well. It's nearly half-way through the novel before Marc finally learns that Soraya is a woman. Though shocked, it does explain some things for him.
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CRUSADER'S LADY is a delightful trip away from the usual medieval romances set in England or France. It takes place in the dirt between the Holy Land and those destinations. The Heroine is also not your typical damsel-in-distress. I rate the Heat Level at Sensual. I think the sign of a good Historical is when the author doesn't resort to contemporary-feeling attitudes and love scenes to win the reader over. A good Historical author stays true and transcends the ages. Ms. Banning does all that.

PIRATICA by Tanith Lee

DISCLAIMER: If this turns out to be a lousy review, the fault is mine and not the author's. I'm still battling a head-cold.A while back I went searching for great adventure stories with young women as the heroines. I found PIRATICA by Tanith Lee and felt I'd struck a gold mine! Tanith Lee is a British author who's been around for decades. I wish I'd known about her when I was a teen, but I grew up in an isolated town in the West with a library the size of a portable latrine and the Internet hadn't been invented yet. Most people there were born there, would live their whole lives there, and would die there. As long as they were happy, I can't fault them for that. But, the cultural isolation and narrow expectations of womankind drove me insane with boredom. I say all this because it made the heroine of PIRATICA totally relatable to me.

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Artemesia starts the story living in an all-girls school learning how to walk with a book on her head and how to swoon. A stumble and a blow to the head jogs her memory. She remembers being the daughter of the most famous female pirate, Molly, and growing up on the ship. I loved this part because STAR CAPTAINS' DAUGHTER is also about a teen with a strong mother who happens to be a ship's captain. Artemesia is much more confident at age 16 than super-klutz Junior is in my story, but I digress. Artemesia remembers how her mother died and how she survived the same explosion and was brought to this school by her estranged father.

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Memory restored, Artemesia return to her full self, the super confident and super clevor daughter of a pirate. Needless to say, her father and the school's matron, Ms. 'Evil Eeble,' are not at all pleased. They lock her in her room and tell her she can't come out until she's reasonable. At this point, Artemesia will knock anyone on his or her back side for calling her by that name and insists on being called 'Art.' She doesn't panick. She steams. She gathers her memories and bides her time, then escapes up the chimney because her 'jailers' had cruelly forbade her a fire to keep warm.

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This story is what I think is called an 'Alternative History' story. It would seem to be set in 1800ish, but England is a republic. London is called Lundin. America is Amir Ka, or something like that. It's really amazing how Tanith Lee pulled off such a parallel universe. Her writing style and voice is so unique I wonder if American publishers would put up with it from a first-time author. There are lots of fragments and words which seem to be extra, but my mind adjusted immediately and I enjoyed it.

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Back to the story. While escaping, Art steals the clothes of a really cute boy named Felix. She has a vague memory of a Lundin pub and proceeds there. It's really funny because instead of alcohol, coffee is all the rage. She finds her mother's old crew, but something's rather odd about them. They tell her Molly wasn't a pirate at all, but an actress! They were all actors and the pirating was just a play. Well, Art's not about to let that dash her dreams of Piratica. Through hook and by crook, she fenagles the crew into sailing up the river in their coffee boat. They accidentally rescue Felix and he winds up stuck on this 'voyage of the damned.' In doing so and by not following the course their sponsor ordered, they become outlaws and can't put into port for fear of being arrested. Soon, they're all the way to the ocean and Art has proclaimed herself captain.

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PIRATICA is not a standard issue YA Fantasy. There are no elves or hobbits and the Hero is a girl who can weild a fake sword with such efficience that she can pop the buttons of her opponent's trousures before he can draw his own blade. There is a sequel to PIRATICA. Like I said, Tanith Lee has been around for decades. Finding and reading her backlist is like finding your own pirate's treasure.

Delay Due to Illness

Sorry I'm not getting my book review up at the usual time and date. As you can see, I'm in the middle of a massive head-cold. You know how it is in lovey-dovey families with all that huggin' and cherishin'. When one gets sick, the rest fall like dominoes. Anyway, I'm going to chug down some Nyquil, get a good night sleep, and write the review tomorrow morning (1/18.) Blog you then, Buds.

THE WINTER ROSE by Jennifer Donnelly

THE WINTER ROSE isn't my usual thing. Oh, I love Historicals, but this one's a lot more gritty than I usually go for. I wouldn't have picked it off the shelf at B&N and I wouldn't have searched out the author's website in cyber-space. The publisher contacted me and asked if I wanted to receive this ARC. Well, I do like Historicals, after all, so how could I say 'no?' I'm glad I didn't!
I wouldn't seek out Charles Dickens at a dinner party either. Nevermind that he'd be a ghost. I never liked Dickens. THE WINTER ROSE is what Dickens would have wrote if he was a woman and had a compelling writing style. It's set mostly on the dirty side of London around the turn of the 20th century and Ms. Donnelly doesn't clean it up one bit. This is actually a sequel or a second in a series, but it totally stands alone. I never got lost once. Some may label this as a Historical Romance. I don't. To me, this is a solid Historical engrossing the social ills and upheavals of British society way back during the days when the future King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra were young and Victoria was still on the Throne. There is romance, but it's the kind of romance in which the Bad Boy is converted to good by the loving example of the Heroine. I've never seen that happen in Real Life, so it never captures my imagination in fiction. Back when I was single, I was very unforgiving of the male gender. If the guy didn't already have it together, I wasn't interested - no matter how cute he was. However, for those of you who find that kind of romance appealling, I think you'll find this one well done simply because the characters are so well-rounded and real, breathing-feeling characters. Still, I'd call it a secondary element in this story.

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Sid Malone is a man with a tragic, twisted past. In fact, that's not even his real name. It's the name of a man he killed in self-defense. He figured no one would believe it was self-defense, so he assumed the identity and let his old identity die since he felt like a nobody anyway. He wasn't a nobody to his sister, however. Fiona shared the same terrible childhood, but managed to overcome it to become a tea tycoon. She still upsets her loving husband trying to find her long-lost brother. The married romance of Fiona was well-done, especially the part about her feeling extra-frisky while pregnant. It's a common misconception that all women hate nookie while pregnant. Well, it just ain't true!

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India Jones is one of the first women doctors in England during a time when a lot of doctors still didn't believe washing their hands was important. After abandoning the family title and money and enduring having mud slung at her by male students, she's graduated and gone to work for one of these doctors. She's idealistic and determined to make a difference. She quickly learns what that will cost her. What she doesn't know is that her handsome Member of Parliament fiance who professes his utter devotion is only after her family's money while secretly bonking a mistress and a string of prostitutes.

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During the course of trying to save malnourished mothers from dying while giving birth to children they haven't the money or strength to care for, India saves the life of Sid Malone. The story twists and turns and their relationship develops. India secretly dispenses contraceptives to one of her fiance's prostitutes and things really start flying apart. At that time in England, dispensing contraceptives was illegal, despite the fact that women and babies were dying in horrific numbers.

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Like I said, this isn't my usual kind of story. The love scenes are Highly Sensual, which is fine by me when the story's well-done like this one. But besides that, the acts of prostitution and the medical scenes, such as India trying to save a woman after a backstreet abortion, are described in detail. You know I have a weak stomach and usually can't handle that - not after four high risk pregnancies of my own! However, Ms. Donnelly does such a superb job weaving the story together that she never lost me for a moment. When she details a teenage prostitute dying after a backstreet abortion, it only adds to the power of the Heroine's character. So, don't shy away from this one, but do be prepared.

Up next week - PIRATICA by Tanith Lee. I can't wait. Alaska's very dark right now and I could really use an adventure on the high seas!

Enduring Romance website updated & Tomorrow's Review

Hey, Blog Buds, I finally updated the Enduring Romance website! Also, here's a first look at the book I'm reviewing tomorrow. http://kimberan7.tripod.com/enduringromance
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If Charles Dickens was a woman, this is the novel he would have written. Actually, I hate Dickens, but I liked THE WINTER ROSE. Check back tomorrow.

THE LUXE by Anna Godbersen

This novel is labeled a Young Adult Historical by its publisher Harper, but after reading it I would call it a Historical Romance without the YA label. I don't think the readers I know will respond in the same way as Harper anticipated. And that's a good thing. Let them snag the Gossip Girl crowd! THE LUXE is a wonderful way to drag readers from the contemporary-setting books into history. I'll go after everybody else with it.




A decade ago, I would have been all over THE LUXE like a bad rash. That's when I was going through my fascination with the Victorian and Edwardian Eras. Roughly, that's between the ascension of Queen Victoria in the early 1800s to the death of her son, King Edward VII in 1900. This is also called the Gilded Age because the Industrial Revolution was making a lot of people very rich. THE LUXE is set in 1999. To give you some perspective, the Titanic sunk in 1912. Of course, I was more interested in what the nannies and lady's maids were doing. Besides reading TO MARRY AN ENGLISH LORD, I also read THE UNNATURAL HISTORY OF THE NANNY and the biography of Lady Astor's personal maid. The LUXE heroine, Elizabeth, does have a lady's maid, in fact, and the only mother figure who seemed to have loved her was her nanny, the mother of her true love, Will. This is all historically consistant. In a time and place when people married for money, they were often detached from their children. Anyway, I've moved on to Ancient History in my historical fascinations. THE LUXE was a nice trip down memory lane.
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The young people I know read Fantasy and some Science Fiction. The ones who do read Historicals don't seem crazy about the mushy ones, but I could be wrong there. Maybe they'll like this one. None of them I've asked like the Gossip Girls at all, so that's not a good comparison to use here. Like I said in my pre-Christmas preview of the LUXE, there is nookie going on in this novel and no mention of contraception, which was, in fact, available during that time period. This is fine for adults, but I'm hesitant to recommend it to teens unless I know they know better. A lot of fourteen year olds do know better, of course, but there are just as many naive seventeen year olds who don't. The venereal disease and pregnancy rates support that. The journey to love can be a dangerous one. A person really must know how to protect her or himself.

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I would put the love scenes at 'Mildly Sensual' on the Heat Level graph. You'll know what's going on, but it happens between the pages. You won't 'see' it happening between the sheets, or in the barn or wherever. This makes me think this would be a wonderful novel for readers who love Historical Romance, but are sick of having to skip over graphic sex scenes. I know there are lot of you out there and you're hesitant to buy new as a result. If that's true and you loved the movie TITANIC with Leonardo diCaprio, then THE LUXE will be a safe buy for you. To me, it's a Historical Romance novel. The heroine just happens to be eighteen years old is all. There's nothing in it a mature woman can't relate to or enjoy.

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THE LUXE starts out with the heroine's funeral. You might be going 'huh? But, it works. Ms. Godbersen's writing style kept me locked in as she took the story from there into the events which led up to it. In case you're worried the requisite Happily Ever After is missing, don't worry. It's not. Although, it's not entirely what you'll expect either.

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In any case, we go from the funeral back to the beginning of the events which led to it. Elizabeth has just returned home and is at that age when young ladies of the Gilded Age are paraded around society in the hopes of snagging a wealthy and well-connected husband. Love is desired, but not necessary. This is normal for her world and her conniving 'best friend' and envious younger sister is all for it. But, Elizabeth harbors a secret love for Will.

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Elizabeth's family is American nobility. Her high profile family goes back generations. Unfortunately and unknown to anyone, her family is on the brink of financial disaster. The matriarch, therefore, is especially adament that Elizabeth marry extremely well. Being a well-brought up girl, extremely well-mannered, and beautiful, Elizabeth goes along with this and immediately snags the most eligible bachelor in town, Henry.

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In a time when marriage was for money and/or political advantage, it wasn't unusual for married people to keep lovers on the side to fulfill their true needs. Even so, the thought of sharing a bed with Henry while really wanting to be with Will, her true love, is unsettling for Elizabeth. As one expect, Will isn't particularly keen on the idea either. Much conspiring and manipulating ensues around the couple, from their friends to Elizabeth's mother and all of society.

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THE LUXE is set Manhatten. If you've ever been curious or fascinated about historic New York, this is also a good novel for you. The period details are well-researched.