Sylvester by Georgette Heyer

When Sylvester, the Duke of Salford, first meets Phoebe Marlow, he finds her dull and insipid. She finds him insufferably arrogant. But when a series of unforeseen events leads them to be stranded together in a lonely country inn, they are both forced to reassess their hastily formed opinions, and begin a new-found liking and respect for each other. Sylvester calls to mind the satirical genius of a Jane Austen novel and is adored for its wit and a fast-paced plot that ranges across a myriad of settings

I first listened to this book just under 3 years ago, but I never did post anything about it, which was remiss of me but I think not really unexpected. After I finished The Passage and then another audio book, I was trying to decide what to read next. I do have a few books that I have already purchased but not yet listened to, as well as a list of books I'd like to get to someday, but none of them really tickled my fancy. And then I hit on the idea of listening again to a Georgette Heyer novel as narrated by Richard Armitage, mainly because it is my idea of aural bliss to listen to him read anything, but he does seem to be particularly suited to narrating Heyer novels.

He has the right tone in his voice that lends itself to upper class accents and his characterisation is so good that it doesn't matter whether the character is old or young, or female or male, each character is individual and recognisable.

Now, I should mention up front that this is an abridged audiobook, but it is a well done abridgement. I don't think I have missed anything through the story so it might be interesting to read in full one time to see what was cut out. That's not always the case. Years ago I listened to a novel where the abridgement wasn't quite so good. At one point the main character was regretting having kissed someone other than her husband and I was like wait...what.

What about the book itself. It is Heyer, so it is all Regency ballrooms and dukes abound, but it is a fun read. I don't want to recap the plot as such because I don't want too start to feel like I should write a full review, rather than just commentary. I will see that I did find myself wondering how much of the language that Heyer used was made up. I am sure that I heard somewhere that she did.

I fully expect to listen to more of the Heyer books Richard Armitage has narrated. It is a totally enjoyable treat.

Audiobooks as noise reduction

I recently went on a cruise and one of the things I realised was that if I was going to be listening to audiobooks at all, possibly I needed something a little lighter than The Passage, which I was listening to at the time.

Little did I know, that I would listen to something for a while but not quite just for the joy of the story.

I went on the cruise with my friend and her son as well as my son. The boys have just turned 18 so before we went away there was a bit of discussion about changing rooms so that they were together and my friend and I were together. Once we were on the boat pressure was bought to bear to do just that and so I acquiesced.

My friend had mentioned that she was a snorer, and so I should have been prepared, but oh my goodness..... The first night I didn't get a lot of sleep. The second night I tried to get to sleep but I was unsuccessful so in the end I decided that I would try putting on my audiobook to block out the noise.

It was a good plan. It really was. There was, however, one flaw.

I assumed that listening would block out the noise, and it certainly muffled it a bit, but not totally so I did still keep on waking up but now there was the added complication that I would wake up and hear something in the audiobook and think things like wait, who's Jack? Why is this character talking to a truck driver at a truck stop. Wait. did she just say she's married.

So then I had to contend with the thoughts in my head and the snoring.

After the second night, we swapped back. And I started listening to the book again so that it made some kind of sense.

The Passage by Justin Cronin - aka the book that I forgot

Well this is a bit interesting. A book related post. I'm not sure I even remember how to do this, but I am thinking that maybe I will give this blogging thing a go but on the basis that it won't be a full on reviews. Maybe just pared back thoughts about the books I am reading. It still isn't many, but it does feel a little bit more likely that I will be reading or listening to more books this year. Not to the obsessive level of years past, but I am actually okay with that. If I can find a happy medium between the 200 plus books a year that I was reading a few years ago and the less than 10 of the last couple of years then I will be a happy camper.

I am also, once again, trying to focus on healthy eating as I have undone a fair amount of the good work I did in losing lots of weight a couple of years ago, so I will most likely be posting some updates related to that.

Really, what I am looking for this year is to have more balance in my life. So, less late nights at work making myself super tired all the time, more home cooked meals. More and less of lots of things really. Lets call that my new years resolution shall we.

So let's talk books. Or maybe book. Singular.

A few years go now (well, more than 6 but who's counting!) I read The Passage by Justin Cronin. Whilst I didn't review it, I graded it 4.5 out of 5 and so clearly finished it, and loved it. I went to a session at Melbourne Writer's Festival where the author spoke because the third book in the trilogy is now out and I realised that at some point I did want to read the second and third books but it had been a while since I read this one so it was time for a reread. Yes, I don't usually reread but things are definitely not usual in my world at the moment so why not.

One of the things that I pride myself on is that I have a pretty good memory. Normally I think that whilst details may be a bit blurry I can generally remember the major story arcs. Or so I thought. It turns out that maybe that is not the case.

When I first started listening, it was great. It was like revisiting an old friend. I remembered the story about a young girl being infected with a virus that in effect allows her to live ageing very, very slowly. I remembered how the FBI found her and took her to the army to become part of a top secret trial that goes awry in a big way and pretty much destroys the world as we know it.

Really, it was after the first third of the book and as the story moved 100 years into the future where I realised that my memory is nowhere near as good as I thought it was because I couldn't remember it. Not just that it was blurry or a bit fuzzy, but I literally had no memory of any of the characters, any of the storyline. So it was kind of like visiting a friend's house and then finding yourself at a party with complete strangers.

I decided to listen to the audiobook because I had so many credits on Audible, but it is a decision that paid off. The narrator for the majority of the book is Scott Brick and I look forward to listening to the next books in the series where he is the sole narrator. And who knows, maybe even looking for some other books that he has narrated at some point. Nothing wrong with following a narrator is there!!

Overall, it was an enjoyable listening experience. I think I will listen to something a little lighter before going back to listen to the second book in the trilogy. And catch up on The Walking Dead episodes that I didn't feel I could watch while I was listening to this! It would have been way too much to be listening to this post apocolyptic vampire novel whilst watching a post apocolyptic zombie TV series.

Well gee, it appears that I had plenty to say after all.

Sunday Salon: Musings on audiobooks, TV adaptations and Game of Thrones

I am currently listening to the audio version of the second book of George R R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Clash of Kings. This is the latest in a long line of audiobooks that I have listened to in the last year, some of them more than once.

Today, I thought I might muse on a couple of things about listening to audiobooks and then specifically focus on Game of Thrones, with particular emphasis on the adaptation that has taken the world by storm over the last couple of years. At least, that is the plan for this post as I sit down to write it. It could end up taking another direction all together!

In some ways I am a bit old fashioned when it comes to how I prefer to listen to audiobooks. I don't tend to download them from places like Audible or even through the library website but rather I like to get the CD and listen to that. There is no real reason for that preference. I don't actually download movies either, but that is possibly a thought for another day and another post.

In the case of a big book getting the CDs might mean a huge number of discs that need to be listened to. A Clash of Kings is 30 CDs long, but the next book is bigger again and that is still dwarfed by the audio book of A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon that I listened to last year which came in at a whopping 49 CDs long!  At the time when I was listening to that book I wasn't driving to work each day so I was only listening for about 15 minutes a day so it literally took me months to get through that audiobook.

Sometimes when you borrow from the library you may get the MP3 version which has both advantages and disadvantages. The most obvious advantage for the listener is the much lower number of discs to be managed. Recently I listened to both On the Jellicoe Road and Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta which were both one MP3 long. Now that I am driving to work most days, I appreciate not having to continually swap discs around while I am driving in order to hear what happens next in the story. I guess I should experiment a little with the whole download thing and see if it works a better in relation to this particular swapping disk aspect.

There is definitely at least one disadvantage to MP3 files though. Whereas a track on a CD might be anywhere between 1 and 10 minutes long, the MP3 tends to have much longer tracks, usually matching chapters. This makes it really quite difficult to know go back to a particular spot in the narrative if you want to listen to something again, either because it was a good bit or you got temporarily distracted and need to go back. The fact that there is often only one CD can also make it a bit difficult to determine how far through a book you are as well.

Regardless of which format you are listening to, one disadvantage to listening rather than having a book in your hand is that it is difficult to take a sneak peek at the end of the book to see how it ends!

I know that some people like to listen to audiobooks to reread books that they have already read but I am tending to use them to get to books that I want to read but I don't have as much time as I would like to actually get to read. For example, I think I know what my next three audiobooks are going to be. They are The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta (because I have recently become a MM fangirl and now I need to read everything I can by her!), then the third Game of Thrones book and then I might try the audiobook of Wolf Hall. I have owned Wolf Hall since it first came out but never actually read it, so by listening to it on audio I will finally be crossing it off the list. Also, someone mentioned that the audio version was very good so we will see.

The narrator of an audiobook can make or break the listening experience. Most of the time they enhance the listening experience but sometimes either the voice just doesn't work or the accents are wrong or whatever. Which brings me to the listening experience for Game of Thrones. The narrator for the first three books is actor Roy Dotrice, and I have to say that he is pretty good,  and he would have to be given the sheer number of characters he has to voice throughout the story. According to the box, he is now holds the world record for the most number of different characters (thank you George R R Martin!).

It has been interesting listening to the book after having seen the TV adaptation. Normally I make a my practise to read a book before seeing the movie or TV series but so far I have watched two and a bit seasons of the Game of Thrones TV series. I was watching the third series but I stopped when I started listening to the books as it was a bit distracting listening to a character do one thing in the book as I was driving and then see them do another thing when I sat down to watch TV.

Given that I have already watched the series, it is definitely the actors that I see in my imagination as I listen to the story, even when I know that there are differences between the book and the TV adaptation. I was pleasantly surprised at how true to the book the first series was and that where there were changes that they made sense. For example, one of the few changes I did notice was that some of the young characters were a few years older than the 12 and 13 year olds in the book. For example, Jon Snow was 14 in the book but older in the TV series and Daenerys was much older too - better for modern sensibilities I think.

Having already watched the series also helps with motivation to keep going because, as is more often than not the case with books that are so long, there were some slow parts in the action but knowing what was coming meant that you could clearly see the machinations at work. This is something that I am noticing more in the second book as well, mainly because it is not as clear. It feels as though there were more changes made to the second series compared to the book than there were in the first. All the major things are the same but there are times when I am listening when I think that events happened in a different place in the storyline in the TV adaptation.

I think how much you notice these changes depends on two factors. How well you know the book or how recently you either read it or, in my case, watched the adaptation and then read the book. How much those changes bother you might depend on one additional factor - how much you treasure the book. It is getting very exciting watching all the news coming out of casting and filming for the series adaptation of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, but that is one story that I will definitely see and notice the changes that they make.

Getting back to Game of Thrones, I am not going to attempt to cover the plot of Game of Thrones for this post, given it is more a discussion than a review post, but here is the synopsis for those who are interested. I would say that I did very much enjoy the listening experience, and hence went back for more. In my mind, I started using seven hells as a curse, but not yet out loud, and that particular phrase hasn't come up much in the second book. It's always fun when a book you are reading informs your thinking and language, ye ken! I ended up giving Game of Thrones a grade of 4.5/5.

Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyong the kingdom's protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assasins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens.

Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror , the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts; the game of thrones.

Currently reading

Fables: War and Pieces by Bill Buckingham, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, The Briny Cafe by Susan Duncan and listening to A Clash of Kings by George R R Martin.

Up Next

A Song of Willow and Frost by Jamie Ford and The Jade Widow by Deborah O'Briend

On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

Is it possible to become a total fangirl for an author based only on one book? If you are me, and the author is Melina Marchetta, then apparently it is!

I loved this book so much that I ended up listening to the audio version of it twice in as many weeks. It isn't out of the question that I will listen to it again or read it in book form. Given how rarely I reread, and certainly never finish a book and just start it again straight away, this is high praise indeed! I love it when a book compels you to behave in a way that you don't normally do so.

I should mention that I have been being told for years that I should read Melina Marchetta. To those people (Kat, Bree and Belle amongst others) I say, yes, you were right.

So what is it about this book that makes it so good?

Taylor Markham is a senior at Jellicoe School. She has just been made the leader of the boarders. This means that her most important responsibility is to lead the school in the annual territory wars between the school, the townies from nearby Jellicoe and the cadets from the city who come and camp for six weeks nearby. These territory wars have been going on for 20 years or so, and it is a very serious business. There are rules of engagement, maps, and there will be consequences if anyone steps into enemy territory. Whilst Taylor has been elected as leader, her grip on the leadership is a little tenuous, so she must do everything in her power to ensure that the schoolies don't lose any territory, and if possible to negotiate additional rights and ground with the enemy. She has only one other house leader on her side, and he must stay by her side otherwise the other house leaders have the power to usurp her position. She also has her friend Raffaela who sticks by her despite Taylor's best efforts to push her away, and perennial pest, Jessa McKenzie, that Taylor can't rid herself of no matter how hard she tries.

Dealing with the enemy is going to be that much more difficult for Taylor because the leader of the cadets is a boy named Jonah Griggs. Three years earlier, Jonah and Taylor had run away together, heading towards Sydney to try and find her mother. They got to within two hours of Sydney before they were found by The Brigadier and returned to Jellicoe. Taylor has never, ever forgiven Jonah for the betrayal of ringing someone to come and get them. The leader of the townies is Chas Santangelo, whose father is the local cop, who seems to have some kind of history with Raffie, and who seems to have a predilection for leading the townies into punchups with the cadets at the slightest provocation.

I was warned going into this book that the first part was a bit difficult to follow, and it was. The territory wars are taken seriously by all involved. Very seriously. I found myself wondering how on earth this story was going to progress to the amazing story that I had been lead to believe I would experience. I also couldn't figure out how it was going to link in with the other story that was also being told in glimpses through the story. In this other story, we meet Webb and his sister Narnie, Tate, Jude and Fitz, a group of kids bought together through tragedy who form a bond that is so strong that it will last a lifetime, if it doesn't destroy them all first.

Taylor first learns of the group by reading the manuscript that is being written by Hannah, another person that Taylor has a difficult relationship with. Taylor first came to Jellicoe 6 years before. She was just 11 years old when her mother drove her to the 711 convenience store in Jellicoe and just left her there. Hannah came along and picked her up, brought her to the school and has since provided the only stability that Taylor has really ever known, but has always kept her at arms length. Now Hannah has disappeared without leaving any indication of where she has gone or when she will be back, and reading the manuscript is one of the few ways Taylor can still feel close to her. As Taylor reads through the manuscript she longs to know more about 'the five'. Who they were, why they were so close, why does she feel so connected to them and what, if anything, is the connection to the boy in the tree who visits her dreams every night?

There was a point in the book though where everything just clicked into place - the territory wars, the story of the give, everything - and suddenly I went from enjoying the story but being a little perplexed to OMG what a book.

From what I can tell, Melina Marchetta loves to torture her characters. Both groups of kids have tragic pasts and some of them even have a tragic present too. Given that, it would have been very easy for this book to tip into the overly angsty and melodramatic but the author manages to balance the drama with moments of joy, of fun and of poignancy. In short, she does an amazing job of engaging the reader and making you feel all the emotions! All of them! When I was listening to the book the first time I was getting towards the end of the book and I was crying my eyes out as I drove along, until I realised that I really needed to stop for petrol. I guess given how emotionally wrung out I was that it was no surprise when the petrol station attendant asked me if I was okay or not. I am pretty sure that I am never going to be able to hear either Flame Trees by Cold Chisel or The Coward of the County by Kenny Rogers without thinking of the characters from this book!

I think my favourite thing about this book is the way that Marchetta writes the development of the friendship between the characters. Slowly Chas and Griggs go from having to spend time together as punishment to begrudgingly spending time together as a result of shared friendships to genuine friends. Similarly, Griggs and Taylor begin to build on their relationship which really began three years before on a train platform. I loved the way that Marchetta slowly allowed both Taylor and the reader to find out exactly what Griggs feels and why he has done what he has done both in the past and in the present. All the emotions.......sob! At one point, one of the characters says to the others "we are going to know him for the rest of our lives" and I felt like cheering, between sobs, and it made me think of the friends that I have that I have known since my teenage years and who I will know for the rest of my life. I also really loved the echoes from the earlier story into the later one. We are not reading the same story repeated again more than a decade later though. It is more nuanced than that, more delicately done and very, very poignant.

If I had been reading the book I would have been bookmarking quotes all the way through. There were just so many beautiful moments. A fair few of them would have featured the amazing Jonah Griggs - one of the best teenage boy characters I have read in a long time. Yes, my son is only a couple of years younger than Jonah was in the book, and yes, that means that I am more than old enough to be Jonah's mother, but yes, I have a crush on him big time, and I don't care who knows it! Slightly more age appropriately, I also have a bit of a crush on Jude, one of the original five.

On the Jellicoe Road is being made into a movie, and I will be very interested to see who is cast and how the movie takes shape because it is a bit difficult to see how the story will come to life if it sticks exactly to it's current structure. There are so many flashbacks and dream sequences, not to mention the internalisation of emotions and thoughts by the characters. I will be just a little scared before seeing it, hoping that it will be an amazing movie. Melina Marchetta has worked on the screenplay so hopefully it still will be something special.

I was very glad to be able to go back and relisten to the book pretty much straight away. As I went through the second time I realised exactly how clever Marchetta's writing is. On the first read through, some of the plot twists seem to be pretty sudden but on the reread, you could definitely see that all the clues were all put in place, ready for the reader to make their discoveries later on in the book. I am sure if I was to physically read the book again I would find even more. I think this is a book that lends itself to being read over and over again!

I should mention that the narrator of the audiobook did an amazing job! It was such a pleasure to get in the car and listen to Rebecca Macauley tell me the story of these kids. I also really appreciated the way that the the production had small musical interludes whenever the narrative changed from one time to the other. Often if you are listening to an audiobook that does feature dual timelines there is just a gap and suddenly you find yourself in the other time and place and it can be a little disconcerting as you try to figure out what just happened. None of that confusion here. I am now listening to Saving Francesca, also narrated by Rebecca Macauley and I am once again enjoying it very much.

When I finished this book the first time through I gave it a rating of 4.5/5 but I think that given how much I am still thinking about the characters, the lasting impact I expect it to have on my psyche, and yes, Jonah Griggs, I think I have to change it to 5/5.

Synopsis

Taylor Markham is now a senior at the Jellicoe School, and has been made leader of the boarders. She is responsible for keeping the upper hand in the territory wars with the townies, and the cadets who camp on the edge of the school's property over summer. She has to keep her students safe and the territories enforced and to deal with Jonah Griggs - the leader of the cadets and someone she'd rather forget. But what she needs to do, more than anything, is unravel the mystery of her past and find her mother - who abandoned her on the Jellicoe Road six years before. The only connection to her past, Hannah, the woman who found her, has now disappeared, too, and the only clue Taylor has about Hannah and her mother's past is a partially written manuscript about a group of five kids from the Jellicoe School, twenty years ago.

I thought I would share just a couple of the songs from the book. There were lots more, but these will be the ones that will always remind me of the characters and the story of this book. I was never even that big a fan of the Waterboys song before now!

Almost French by Sarah Turnbull

Unlike a lot of us, including those of us that participate in the Paris In July event, freelance journalist Sarah Turnbull wasn’t all that desperate to visit France when she was spending a year backpacking through Europe back in the mid 90s. She was mainly spending her time in the eastern European countries. In her travels, she meets a French lawyer named Frederic a couple of times and when he asks her to come and visit him in Paris, she agrees.

What starts out as a week long visit turns into a month long holiday affair and then into more and, after a brief separation while Sarah finishes her travels, she moves to Paris to be with Fred. Moving to a different country requires adjustments for anyone, let alone when there is a different language and very different cultural values involved. For a relatively laid back Aussie, the rules that permeate French society are difficult to understand let alone to follow, and that is before you throw the fact that Sarah needs to learn the language quickly and to find a way to break into the freelance journalism market so that she can start to earn some income. Being a freelance journalist means that she must work from home which is a way that the author is isolated from others, and she must find ways to counteract this loneliness.

Turnbull takes us through some of the well known French clichés but also some of the less well known quirks as well. She writes about the French obsession with food, talking not only of the lunch that she ate in a Michelin star restaurant but also of her joy at eventually moving to an area of Paris where there is still a fresh food market. She tells of starting most days with a café crème at her local café, and attends dinner parties where it is expected that there will be numerous courses and if they aren’t right there will be criticisms made - very different to the barbecue in the backyard that most Australians would be used to.

One of the other things that Turnbull talk about included fashion, and the way that seeing seeing how the French dress influenced her to dress better. At one point, she and Frederic had a conversation about how no French person would wear their tracksuit pants to the bakery for fear of upsetting the baker. A few days later I thought about how I would manage in France as I just popped down to the shops in my trackydacks, old smelly trainers and jumper! Non, non, non!

Other subjects to be examined include making friends, the French concept of home (wherein Frederic returns to his small town in Normandy on a very regular basis), moving house to a fabulous sounding apartment in central Paris and the joy of living in the beautiful city but also the issues that brings, Frederic's first visit to Australia and more. All of the anecdotes are told with humour and with a candour that at times can verge on harsh (for example when she talks about how difficult it can be to make friends with French women), but I can also definitely imagine. One of the other fun stories was when Sarah and Frederic decide to buy a dog. Sarah is determined that there do Maddie is not going to be a pampered Parisian pooch, but it doesn't take long before Maddie goes everywhere with her and often provides entres into conversation that might not have otherwise existed.

One of the strengths of the book for me was that Turnbull not only observes as an outsider looking at French society but that she was trying to understand so that she could assimilate as much as it would be possible for an Australian moving to France could, especially someone whose partner is French and so she doesn't want to let him down at all. Also, she took the time to compare and contrast the two cultures and the way they approach everyday things like food or the service that they expect in shops or aesthetic beauty whether it be in their own home or in hotel rooms with terrible art on the walls for example.

One of the other things that was quite interesting to me was that Sarah and I were both travelling at around the same time and so there were some key events that were mentioned during the book that I remember quite clearly. For example, when France won the soccer World Cup in 1998, I remember watching the final and then seeing the news reports of the people of Paris celebrating whilst Sarah Turnbull writes about being there. Whereas she ended up living a fabulous life in Paris I ended up living for 5 years in the UK, and I obviously came back to Australia a lot sooner than she did.

While I was living in an English speaking country with a similar culture and so did not face a lot of the same difficulties as she did, I was involved with a Nigerian man whose friends were predominantly other young Nigerian men and so could really relate to the feeling of ostracism that comes with sitting around a table or lounge for a meal and not being able to follow the conversation because it was in another language that you either didn’t know or weren’t fluent in, to having no one make any effort to include you in the conversation, to that feeling of just filling a space rather than being an integral part of the gathering.

I listened to the audiobook version of this book which was narrated by Caroline Lee, who I am almost convinced is pretty much the only female Australian narrator out there. I know that isn’t true, but this is the fourth audiobook that I have listened to this year where she was the narrator, and she also narrates several that I have considered listening to. I did like her narration in this book. I think her voice is more suited to contemporary storytelling, or at least I didn’t like her as much when I was listening to historical novels, particularly ones where there was a wide variety of different accents.
This book was published in the early 2000's and it has taken all this time for a follow up book to be released. I am looking forward to finding out what happens next to Frederic and Sarah.


Rating 4/5

Synopsis

A delightful, fresh twist on the travel memoir, Almost French takes us on a tour that is fraught with culture clashes but rife with deadpan humor.

Sarah Turnbull's stint in Paris was only supposed to last a week. Chance had brought Sarah and Frédéric together in Bucharest, and on impulse she decides to take him up on his offer to visit him in the world's most romantic city. Sacrificing Vegemite for vichyssoise, the feisty journalist does her best to fit in, although her conversation, her laugh, and even her wardrobe advertise her foreign status.

But as she navigates the highs and lows of this strange new world, from life in a bustling quartier and surviving Parisian dinner parties to covering haute couture fashion shows and discovering the paradoxes of French culture, little by little Sarah falls under its spell: maddening, mysterious, and charged with that French specialty—seduction.

I read this book for following challenges/events:

Chasing Fire by Nora Roberts

Rowan Tripp is a Missoula based smoke jumper, following in the footsteps of her legendary smoke jumper father, Lucas "Ironman" Tripp. Each summer, Rowan puts her ‘normal’ life aside and lives on base, waiting for the siren to sound heralding the next chance for her to put her life on the line, along with those of her friends and colleagues who share her passion for smoke jumping. And it is no exaggeration to say that the job that these men and women do is dangerous. Just last year, her jump partner Jim had been killed while jumping to fight a fire. Rowan is still haunted by his death, even though an investigation has ascertained that there was nothing that anyone could have done to save Jim.

When we meet Rowan, she is involved in training a new group of recruits. The training is vigorous, draining and designed to weed out all but the best of them. It doesn’t take her long to notice one of the recruits. Gulliver Curry is a former hotshot firefighter who now wants to move to smoke jumping, and he has made quite an impression already during the training, breaking records for running and more. In addition, he is confident and easy on the eyes. For Rowan, he is off limits. She never mixes business with pleasure and in all the years she has been jumping she has never hooked up with another jumper during the season. To be honest, Rowan is kind of emotionally closed off to any kind of relationship other than the occasional one night stand in the off season.

Gull - as an aside what kind of name is Gull Curry - was quick to notice Rowan too, and he is determined to charm her into breaking her rules just this once. I am pretty sure that Gull could talk me into just about anything. He is charming, funny, quick thinking and intelligent and he knows just how to push Rowan when she needs to be pushed and when to give her space. I thought he was a great hero, especially seeing as he had so many layers. For example, while he is a firefighter during the summer months, during the winter months he and his extended family run a games arcade. I would gladly read more about him, maybe if he was a secondary character in another book! His friend, Dobie, would be an interesting challenge to write a romance for!

What is already a difficult season for Rowan, given the events of the previous summer, becomes more difficult when Jim’s former girlfriend Dolly returns to the base with a baby in tow – Jim’s baby. Dolly blames Rowan for the fact that her baby is now going to grow up without a father and she is determined to make Rowan’s life a misery. It is a terrible shock to everyone in the close knit community that makes up the base when Dolly turns up dead, especially when the police spend so much time at the base investigating them all. It all gets even more sinister when there is another body found, and then later when it seems that the jumpers are being targeted. Is someone trying to deliberately hurt Rowan and the other jumpers and if so why?

I don’t read a lot of romantic suspense, but I do read Nora Roberts’ standalone titles. While I found the story suspenseful in terms of the events that happened to the characters, I didn’t find the whodunit aspect particularly strong. From the moment the bad guy was introduced I thought he would turn out to be the culprit. Towards the end, I maybe considered switching suspects for a few pages but for the most part it didn’t matter where the investigation was trying to lead the reader – I was pretty certain of who it was going to be.

One of the strong aspects of this story was the secondary romance between Lucas Tripp and school principal Ella. It was delightful to get to see this older couple find each other and act on their initial attraction and let it build into something more. I loved how nervous Lucas was despite the fact in other areas of his life he was totally a take charge kind of guy. I did wonder if Rowan’s insecurities around the fact that her dad had met someone were a bit over the top, but I guess when you have been the only woman in your dad’s life for years you might struggle a little to adjust to these new developments. There were times when Rowan’s attitude got a little wearing about a few things but Gull soon pulled her into line!

As far as I know, we don't have smoke jumpers here in Australia, so I found the details surrounding the risks that these brave men and women take absolutely fascinating. Imagine being prepared to jump out of a plane fully loaded down with fire fighting and safety equipment, having to run or hike miles, cut down trees, burn fire breaks and so much more. It is dangerous work in so many ways and my mind was blown that there were groups of people who are prepared to do this every summer for the sake of preserving the wilderness and presumably to save lives and homes should it get too close to civilization.

I listened to this on MP-3 and I have to say that it was a fantastic listening experience. The narrator, Rebecca Lowman, did such an amazing job with the different voices and especially with imbuing the text with the right degree of emotion to match the story. There was the perfect degree of tension as the smoke jumper's rushed to fight the wild fires, of fear as the characters faced various threats against them, of humour amongst a group of good friends and colleagues, of emotion in the relationships, of everything. While I really enjoyed the story itself, I must confess that I don't think I can imagine wanting to actually read the book rather than repeating the listening experience.

Rating 4.5/5

Synopsis

Little else in life is as dangerous as fire jumping. Flying past towering pillars of smoke, parachuting down to the edge of an all-consuming blaze, shoveling and sawing for hours upon hours, days at a time, all to hold the line and push back against the raw power of Mother Nature.

But there’s also little else as thrilling — at least to Rowan Tripp. The Missoula smoke jumpers are one of the most exclusive firefighting squads in the nation, and the job is in Rowan’s blood: her father is a legend in the field. She’s been fighting fires since her eighteenth birthday. At this point, returning to the wilds of Montana for the season feels like coming home — even with reminders of the partner she lost last season still lingering in the air.

Fortunately, this year’s rookie crop is among the strongest ever — and Gulliver Curry’s one of the best. He’s also a walking contradiction, a hotshot firefighter with a big vocabulary and a winter job at a kids’ arcade. He came to Missoula to follow in the footsteps of Lucas “Iron Man” Tripp, yet he’s instantly more fascinated by his hero’s daughter. Rowan, as a rule, doesn’t hook up with other smoke jumpers, but Gull is convinced he can change her mind. And damn if he doesn’t make a good case to be an exception to the rule.

Everything is thrown off balance, though, when a dark presence lashes out against Rowan, looking to blame someone for last year’s tragedy. Rowan knows she can’t complicate things with Gull — any distractions in the air or on the ground could be lethal. But if she doesn’t find someone she can lean on when the heat gets intense, her life may go down in flames.

Sunday Salon: For my listening pleasure...

This week I have been in aural bliss! There's a couple of reasons for this but I will start with two names......

Keith Urban and Richard Armitage

No...not together, but let me just take a moment to appreciate that mental image!

Let's start with Keith shall we? Last Sunday night I had the fantastic pleasure of going to see Keith Urban in concert. He was supported by Benji and Joel Madden who are now performing as The Madden Brothers. Keith's show was totally, totally awesome and I sang and danced from beginning to end! The crowd was totally involved, especially because he came out into different stages in the crowd to perform. In addition to all of his hits, he sang Wonderwall by Oasis with the Madden and Melbourne artist Missy Higgins came out and sang a Crowded House song.

I was a lot more choosy about my companion this time. You may recall that last time I went to see Keith Urban in concert, I took my son and he slept through the entire show! I did say to my friend that I didn't care if she didn't enjoy herself she just had to stay awake! Fortunately, she did enjoy it.  When I was looking for that link I just read the post I wrote last time I went and I could pretty much just say "ditto" because everything I loved last time was great again this time, but just better!

Not only did I listen to his albums before the concert, I have also listened to them pretty much exclusively for the week afterwards (and I might just go and put it on again tonight). Why yes, I can be a little obsessive. In fact, pretty much the only time I was listening to something and it wasn't Keith Urban, I was listening to another obsession, Richard Armitage narrate Venetia by Georgette Heyer.

The book of Venetia was actually the first ever Georgette Heyer novel that I bought. I was in a specialist romance bookstore talking about how much I loved historical romance and the assistant was shocked when I said that I had never read any Georgette Heyer novels and she insisted that I needed to buy Venetia before I left the store. So I did. And then I put it on the bookshelf where it has stayed ever since despite the fact that I have read and loved quite a few of her book since.

The opportunity of listening to Richard Armitage narrate though was too much to pass up so when I got some ITunes vouchers for Christmas it was one of the first things I bought.

I loved the story itself, but I have to say that I could listen to RA talk for hours and hours and hours and hours. His normal voice is so melodious but he also manages to bring such distinct characterisation to all the characters whether they be male or female.

The story itself is firmly in quintessential Heyer territory. Venetia is a young woman who has been left with the responsibility of looking after the family property and her younger brother whilst her older brother is off fighting a war. She has two suitors but she isn't really interested in either of them. One is young and very ardent and the other is very condescending and believes it is his right to act as though he already owns Venetia.

Whilst out strolling one day, she meets Lord Damerel, scandalously infamous rake who is barely tolerated in polite society. So begins a delicate friendship that blossoms more and more into something that is beginning to look like love. He is, however, very much aware of how much damage it would do her reputation were he to pursue her and that is confirmed when her relatives learn of her interest and whisk her off to London out of harm's way...or so they thing.

I loved the humour in this book, and think it may well be up there with my favourite Heyer books!

I was a little bit surprised to find out that this was an abridged recording. My worst ever audiobook experience was an abridgement (it also had a really bad narrator) and so I am always reluctant to listen to abridged books. In that book, there was a scene where it reference two of the characters kissing which was never mentioned previously so it was a bit jarring. It is a testament to the people who did the abridgement that I don't feel like I missed out on much. Of course, I may find I am completely wrong should I actually decide to read the whole book at some point in the future.

There are two other Heyer books that have been recorded featuring Richard Armitage; Sylvester which I have read before and The Convenient Marriage which I haven't read yet. I am a little reluctant to hand over $27 for an audiobook but if I get more giftcards any time soon it will be my first purchase!

To give you just a taste of the pure bliss that is listening to this man's voice, here is a brief recording of him reading a scene from Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South.



And just because I can, here is a video I have included before, but I still love watching it!




Currently Reading

The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing by Tarquin Hall

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The Little Russian by Susan Sherman, War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Addition by Toni Jordan

Grace Lisa Vandenburg counts....everything. Her life is very precisely ordered. She gets out of her single bed at the exact same time of the morning everyday, she always goes to the same cafe, and she always orders the same cake (orange poppyseed) which she always cuts into precisely the same number of pieces. She always buys exactly the same number of chicken breasts, potatoes, bananas when she does her food shopping. She always counts her steps, she has been known to count the number of alfalfa sprouts that she puts on her lunch time sandwich. She always speaks to her mother at precisely the same time each Sunday night follow shortly after by a conversation with her sister.

She is also obsessed with the life story of inventor Nicola Testa, who is famous inventor, most well known for his contribution to the development of electricity.

What we know as a reader fairly early on is that this obsession has affected Grace's degree to such an extent that she doesn't function as a 'normal' person does. She no longer can drive a vehicle or work in her job as a teacher. She has very limited social interactions and those that she does have are in very rigid environs - like the woman in the coffee shop that Grace orders her cake and hot chocolate from every day.

One day, when Grace is at the supermarket, she has a bit of a problem:

My shopping trolley has 2 trays of chicken thighs, fat and glossy, each tray containing 5. A carton of eggs marked as a dozen. (Each week I assure ecstasy-boy or high-pain-threshold-girl, a Kiwi backpacker with seven piercings in each ear, that I have already checked the eggs. This is so they won’t open the carton and notice I have removed 2 and left them in the assorted spices.) Plastic bags containing 100 beans (that’s a pain), 10 carrots, 10 baby potatoes, 10 small onions. 100 grams of salad mix. (I refuse to shop in a supermarket without a digital scale.) 10 little tins of tuna. 10 orange bottles of shampoo. 9 bananas.

What?

Count again.

How the fuck did I get 9 bananas in my trolley?

After a brief panic, Grace comes up with a solution. There is a man behind her who has a solitary banana in his shopping. All she needs is to create a distraction and surreptitiously acquire his banana. She thinks that she has gotten away with it, until he confronts her outside and asks why she stole his banana. This is the first interaction with Seamus Joseph O'Reilly, but he is determined that it is not going to be the last.

After a slow start involving Seamus being stood up while Grace counted the bristles on her toothbrush, a relationship between the two of them develops. The attraction between the two of them is strong, and they make each other laugh, and it doesn't take Seamus long to realise that there is something different about Grace and that part of what makes her interesting is the difference! As for Grace, she soon realises that she forgets to count when Seamus is around.

Seamus is an ordinary man, with an ordinary job, and he knows that Grace is something special to him, but he also wants to see her happy and so the two of them begin to talk about treatments. Seamus was a fantastic leading man to read about. I would be quite happy to find a Seamus myself, but I am not sure I am about to start stealing vegetables from other people's shopping at the supermarket!

While there is a strong romantic element to the book, really it is a story that is all about Grace - about why she is the way she is stemming from a childhood incident, to how she lost her job, her relationships with her family and how her life is affected when she meets a man like Seamus. It is funny and tender, and was so enjoyable to listen to. I have seen this referred to as thinking woman's chick lit, which fits to a degree. It is about Grace's journey so it does have that in common with chick lit, but it also tackles in depth issues in a way that is funny and emotional. The reader shouldn't go into it expecting to read about fashion, shopping, brand names or anything like that.

One of the most interesting aspects of this story was the focus on an unusual example of a mental health issue. Grace knows that the counting rules her life - how can she not? - but she is also determined that she is not like "those crazy handwashers". As she and Seamus talk through her issues and as she starts the treatments, she is looking forward to being normal, whatever that means, but it soon becomes clear that rather than bringing more to her life, she loses herself in the process. It was heartbreaking to read this part of the novel and had me thinking a lot about why it is that the process that she was going on was about making Grace the same as everyone else, rather than modifying the behaviour to enable functionality but still allowing Grace the space to be her unique self.

Without giving too much away, I loved the way that the author was able to end this story in a way that did allow Grace the freedom to be herself.

As I mentioned before, I listened to this on audiobook, mainly because I went to an author event where Toni Jordan was present at a couple of months ago and won a doorprize which was this audiobook. It is the first audiobook that I listened to after completing listening to A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon which was 48 (!) CDs long and took me about three months to listen to. It was therefore something of a shock initially to find myself listening not to Scottish and American accents but rather listening to an Australian narrator (Caroline Lee) tell an Australian story, but one with themes that I suspect will be recognised universally. For the most part I liked the narration even though I found the voice kind of girlish, maybe too young. There were a couple of characters that I didn't think worked in terms of the inflections and tones, one of which was the group therapy facilitator (whose name I can't remember right now)

This was the first book that I finished reading/listening to this year, and it was a good place to start my reading year. I am looking forward to reading Toni Jordan's next book, Fall Girl, and really looking forward to reading her latest book which is set again in Melbourne but during World War II!

Rating 4/5

Synopsis

Grace Lisa Vandenburg counts. The letters in her name (19). The steps she takes every morning to the local café (920); the number of poppy seeds on her slice of orange cake, which dictates the number of bites she'll take to finish it. Grace counts everything, because numbers hold the world together. And she needs to keep an eye on how they're doing.

Seamus Joseph O'Reilly (also a 19, with the sexiest hands Grace has ever seen) thinks she might be better off without the counting. If she could hold down a job, say. Or open her kitchen cupboards without conducting an inventory, or make a sandwich containing an unknown number of sprouts. Grace's problem is that Seamus doesn't count.

This book counts for the following challenges

Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie

Turn left at small town secrets...

Sophie Dempsey is content living a quiet life filming wedding videos until an assignment brings her to Temptation, Ohio. From the moment she drive into town, she gets a bad feeling; Sophie is from the wrong side of the tracks and everything in Temptation is a little too right. And when she has a run-in with the town's unnervingly sexy mayor, Phineas Tucker, making a little movie turns out to be more than a little dangerous.

Yield to oncoming desire...

All Sophie wants to do is film the video and head home. All Phin wants to do is play pool with the police chief and keep things peaceful. They both get more than they bargained for when Sophie's video causes an uproar and the proper citizens of Temptation set out to shut them down.

Welcome to temptation...

As event spiral out of control, Sophie and Phin find themselves caught in a web of gossip, blackmail, adultery, murder, and really excellent sex. All hell breaks loose in Temptation as Sophie and Phin fall deeper and deeper in trouble...and in love.

If you have read my blog for a fair while one thing you might notice is that I don't normally do rereads. Having said that, I was browsing through the online catalogue for the library not so long ago to see if Jennifer Crusie's next book had been added to the catalogue yet when I noticed that they had this book on audiobook. You know how sometimes you just NEED a certain type of book. Well, as soon as I saw it, my immediate reaction was I need to listen to a great romance with lots of humour, and so I borrowed it.

As I mentioned previously, I had read this book before, but I had forgotten many of the details. When I think of Jennifer Crusie's books I think of smart and funny, but I don't often think of how sexy her love scenes are, or of the swearing that is in the book. I am not sure if it is because I was listening to the book instead of reading it but it really jumped out at me this time around. Now, that doesn't bother me, but when I thought about my work colleague listening to it, I did wonder how she would react. By the way, I went into work the next day after making that post and mentioned to her that I wasn't sure how she would react to it, and to be honest her initial reaction was to be a bit hurt - she asked me if I thought she was a prude. I am however glad that I did say something to her. I am not sure if she is going to give it a go but if she does at least she will be forewarned.

I loved the way that this book is never exactly what you think it is. For example, when Sophie and Phin meet it could be a straight romance novel, but then there is the body and it turns more into a mystery, but then the victim appears to be the man who died a thousand deaths, so is it really mystery. Regardless of all those things, the one thing this book is, is a really good reads.

There are laugh out loud moments, there are sexy moments, and there are the poignant moments. The narrator did a pretty good job at getting all the different tones and moods. A couple of the character's voices were a little bit weak, but other than that I have no complaints. Some of the scenes, for example at the town council meetings about the water tower and the pool game between Phin and Sophie, are comedy gold!

Now I just wish my library had more JC books on audiobooks that I could listen to again. I especially wish that they had Bet Me and Faking It, but I guess if worse comes to worse I could actually try reading a reread instead of listening to it!

Rated S for too sexy?

At the moment I am listening to Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie. I have read this before, but it was a long time ago and I had forgotten how steamy this book was, as well as how strong some of the language is. In fact, quite often I used to see people nominate the scene on the dock as one of the sexiest in romance and I used to be somewhat surprised and think I don't remember any really, really hot scenes in any of Jennifer Crusie's books. Let's just say my memory has been refreshed!

Not too long ago I convinced one of my workmates that listening to audio books whilst walking was a good idea. At first she was extremely sceptical, but it only took a few days for her to get to like it. We have been sharing some audio books, and so when I got Welcome to Temptation I asked her if she wanted to borrow it and she was like sure!

The only problem now is that I have been listening to it over the weekend and have realised exactly how sexy that dock scene is, along with some of the other scenes in the book (discovery fantasies anyone?) and all of a sudden I am thinking that she really isn't going to be comfortable with this book at all. So my dilemma is, do I go back into work tomorrow and hope she hasn't started listening to it yet and give her a ratings warning or do I wait for her to give it back and listen to her totally shocked reaction? Another workmate is trying this one out as her first audio book, but I think she will be fine with it but I am not sure about the other one!