Hopping around!

It's book blog hopping time! This week has a question:

Tell us about some of your favorite authors and why they are your favorites!

I have many favorite authors for many different reasons, so I'll just pick one: Haruki Murakami. I love Murakami's ability to paint a world that you can get completely lost in-one that at first glimpse resembles normal life but the further you delve into the book the more surreal it becomes. The prose is so engaging that you find yourself longing to listen to that Shubert piano concerto the characters were listening to, or to eat pasta right along with the characters-it really makes me want to fully immerse myself in Murakami's world.

Here is the link to Crazy for Books to keep on a'hopping!

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

Loving Frank follows the story and love affair between architect Frank Lloyd Wright and his mistress, Mamah Borthwick Cheney. When they were both living in Oak Park, IL (a suburb of Chicago) Wright met Mamah while building a house for her and her family (which included a husband and two children). They fell in love and set the stage for one of the most scandalous love affairs of the turn of the century. Mamah left her family to follow Wright to Germany, and Wright left his wife and six kids to have a relationship with Mamah as well. The press were all over their affair, likening Mamah to the Whore of Babylon and Mrs. Wright the angelic victim who never lost faith in her husband.

This book tells the story from Mamah's point of view, and paints a strong woman in search of herself and her place in the world. While both of their actions were incredibly selfish in respect to their families, the book goes to lengths to describe what they meant to each other, spouting Ellen Key's philosophies of the importance of not sacrificing yourself to a loveless marriage. Mamah is a very intelligent woman, who set herself up as a translator of the same Ellen Key's works for America and went through the world with her eyes wide open. The character portrayed by Horan acknowledges the fact that Mamah knew what she was doing to her kids, and Wright's kids, but that she really believed she was doing the right thing for them all long term. Reading this book I was able to understand the point of view of the 'other woman', even though I don't necessarily agree with her actions.

This book is a wonderful glimpse into Chicago in the early 1900s and a good characterization of Frank Lloyd Wright. It also sheds light on Mamah, who in the passage of time has become more of a caricature than a real person. I highly recommend it to all historical fiction fans and lovers of Wright's amazing architecture.

Chicago in Wright's Time:
Frank Lloyd Wright spent the first 20 years of his 70-year career in Oak Park,IL building numerous homes in the community, including his own. He lived and worked in the area between 1889 and 1909. One can find Wright's earliest work there, like the Winslow House in neighboring River Forest, Illinois. There are also examples of the first prairie-style houses in Oak Park. He also designed Unity Temple, a Unitarian church, which was built between 1905 and 1908. Oak Park had just become its own city in 1902, and was vastly underdeveloped at the time of Wright's residence, surrounded by a prairie, which probably served as the inspiration for Wright's Prairie School of architecture. All of Wright's houses that he built in Oak Park still stand, and most of them are still lived in. If you ever take a trip to Chicago, go a little further west to Oak Park to see these houses, and Wright's home and studio, which has been modified into a museum. A must see for any lover of architecture.

About the Author:

Nancy Horan is a writer and journalist whose work has appeared in numerous publications. Loving Frank is her first novel. She lived most of her life in Oak Park, IL, until her recent move to an island in Puget Sound. She was awarded the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction in 2009.

Similar books to consider:
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson, Dragonwyck by Anya Seton

I'm back! Now it's time for a Giveaway!

I know, I know, I've been away for a very long time. Life just gets in the way of blogging sometimes, and for that I apologize. But the good news is that I've returned to find that I have reached my goal of 10 followers!! That means it is time to celebrate!

The book I've chosen to give away to one lucky reader is (drumroll)

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan.

I'll shortly post my review of this great book to whet your appetite!

Everyone interested should enter the drawing by putting your name and email address in the comments of this post. You don't have to be a follower, but I would certainly enjoy it if you were! I will close entries on July 19. Best of luck to you all, and thank you for following!

Princess of the Sword by Lynn Kurland

I felt a compulsive need to finish the Nine Kingdoms trilogy right away after reading book 2 (see my review of The Mage's Daughter). In this book Miach and Morgan race to the finish to stop the well of evil pouring out over the Nine Kingdoms and to defeat the evil black mage before he destroys Miach's kingdom. The King has been king-napped along with the queen, and the kingdom is undefended. Miach and Moragn have to hurry and finish their quest and return home before there isn't a home left to return to.

This is a good end to the series, but it wasn't great. There was a great deal more action than book 2 and the plot moved a lot quicker, which was good, but what left me unsettled was having too many loose ends not tied up at the end. It just didn't seem finished enough for me. If there were a fourth book that would make me feel better. But there isn't. So the book loses points for not finishing up tight and clean.

For information about the author and other books to consider, please see The Mage's Daughter review.

The Mage's Daughter by Lynn Kurland

I had read the first part of this series a couple years ago (Star of the Morning), and had long wanted to finish off the trilogy. While the first novel of the three is definitely the best, this one has some good things to say about it as well.

The background story for those who haven't read the first book: Morgan is a fierce mercenary and master swordswoman, one of the only women who have such skill with a blade. Her foster father, Nicholas, asks her to deliver a special blade to another kingdom, and even though it is magic, she cannot refuse the person who has given her so much. So she goes and meets adventure in the form of nasty shadow creatures and an archmage in disguise. This archmage is trying to find the one person who can wield a very powerful sword, which may just save his kingdom from an evil black mage bent on destroying him. But he got way more than he bargained for when he meets Morgan, and cannot help himself as he falls for her. Suddenly everything has a new perspective he didn't see coming.

So that is a little taste of book one. This novel is a compelling second part to the Nine Kingdoms trilogy, and it focused a great deal more on the romance between Miach the archmage and Morgan the mercenary. Miach helps her to uncover the past that had been uncovered for so long, but once it began to come to light terrified her to no end. He also offers up a future where he will do whatever it takes to keep her safe. But the peril that is plaguing the Nine Kingdoms is getting worse and Miach must find a way to protect his realm and those he loves. But Morgan will not be left at home while he tries to shoulder this burden on himself. And perhaps she may be the only one who can truly stop the evil that threatens them.

A very quick read (I finished it in a day), and very entertaining. Lots of mushy stuff, but everything entirely innocent. No R rated stuff here. But lots of magic, which I enjoyed. Morgan is a bit too doe-eyed in this volume, which she certainly wasn't hardly at all in book one, but it was still entertaining to read nevertheless.

About the author: Lynn Kurland is a best-selling American author of historical, time travel, and fantasy romance novels. Her novels have appeared on the The New York Times Bestseller List, USAToday Bestseller List, The New York Times Extended Bestseller List, the Amazon Top 100, and the Barnes and Noble, Waldenbooks, and B. Dalton Bestsellers lists. She has won three RITA awards and was a finalist for a fourth. She was born in Hawaii and is a classically trained musician as well. She plays the cello. To date, she has written 31 novels. There are currently 6 books that are set in the Nine Kingdoms.

If you like this, you may also like: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede, and The Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce

At the Hop!

Hello fellow book blog hoppers! Glad you could stop by, and I hope you like what you see. Here is the link to Crazy for Books to keep on a'hopping!

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

I'll bet you were wondering when I would ever get finished with this book. I'll have to beg your forgiveness because this book was 846 pages long and jam packed with content! The book was really really good though, so it was worth the time spent.

This book is definitely one of my new favorites. It is set in England in the 1800s, but in an England where magic has been prevalent throughout its history, but at present dormant. Enter Gilbert Norrell-a very learned magician who learned his craft from buying up all the available books on magic in the land. He is very content to be the world's only practicing magician. But then Jonathan Strange appears. He is drawn to magic, and then to Mr. Norrell who has become the epicenter of English magic. The two are quite a pair of opposites, but their shared love of learning and magic unite them. They begin to aid England in the Napoleonic wars with their skills and are perceived as England's heroes. But a rather foolish pact That Mr. Norrell made with a Fairy will come back to bite both of them. Despite their differences they will need each other to fix things and fulfill a prophecy to bring English magic back to its former strength.

What a great book. Even though it is over 800 pages it was engaging from start to finish. Some parts read like a book right out of Jane Austen's era, but with a twist of magic thrown in for spice. The footnotes that explain references to ancient magical history are also very engaging. This is a wonderful and unique undertaking, and I count Clarke among some of my favorite novelists. I look forward to reading more from this wonderful author.

About the Author:Susanna Clarke is a British author. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is her debut novel, which is a Hugo Award-winning alternate history. Clarke began Jonathan Strange in 1993 and worked on it during her spare time while editing cookbooks for Simon and Schuster. For the next decade, she published short stories from the Strange universe, but it was not until 2003 that Bloomsbury bought her manuscript and began work on its publication. The novel became a bestseller. Two years later, she published a collection of her short stories, The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories (2006). Both Clarke's novel and her short stories are set in a magical England and written in a pastiche of the styles of nineteenth-century writers such as Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. While Strange focuses on the relationship of two men, Jonathan Strange and Gilbert Norrell, the stories in Ladies focus on the power women gain through magic.

If you find this interesting, also check out: Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley and A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. Both are excellent novels that really paint the entire history of the magical world around the story.