ABA Board Member's Resolutions for 2020, RIP Christopher Tolkien, Kittens at Canadian Bookstore, RIP Jim Lehrer, Michele Obama's Becoming Wins Grammy, Touch the Dark by Karen Chance, A Cruel Deception by Charles Todd and A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult

There's a lot of  upper respiratory infections and pneumonia going around in my household, so while I've been too sick to do a lot of things that I normally do, I have at least been able to read some of the books in my TBR and watch the premier episode of Star Trek Picard on CBS All Access (and I loved it, of course. I am really looking forward to the third season of Star Trek Discovery, which should be starting soon). So this blog post is late, but I am just glad that I am able to feel good enough to sit in front of the computer and write at all.  Here's the latest tidbits and reviews.

As 2020 began, Bookselling This Week asked ABA board members for their New Year's resolutions http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43074072 Kelly Estep, co-owner of Carmichael's Bookstore http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43074073, Louisville, Ky., said: "My resolution this year is to more clearly connect with our community in a way that will ultimately support our business and keep it growing. We are opening a dedicated event space and that will mean an expanded events schedule with some of those possibly being non-book related.

In 2007, around the time of Wi2 in Portland, Ore., I wrote: "Publishing industry headlines are still rife with closing indie bookstores and evolving technology that may threaten the very existence of 'fiber-based' texts. Should we be afraid, like medieval peasants terrified by the prospect of what army or disease might be coming over the hill to annihilate their village next? I don't think that way. It is, as it always has been, the end of some worlds and the beginning of other worlds. The peasants adapt to survive. So do the artists."

Oh, one last item from the NRF conference: Forbes reported that "this year, at the retail show, the country's largest retailers are talking about their plans to use robots http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43074074 artificial intelligence, computer vision, and machine learning as a way to let their human staff do what humans do best, and connect with other humans--their customers."

I read and loved all of Tolkien's fantasy novels when I was still in grade school. I was so glad that his son carried on with publishing his father's posthumous works.  It's so sad that these two great writers have passed on, but their work is a legacy that will last for generations yet to come.

Obituary Note: Christopher Tolkien

Christopher Tolkien http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43102690, the son of J.R.R. Tolkien, "who guarded his legacy and brought forth monumental posthumous works, like The Silmarillion," died January 15, the New York Times reported. He was 95. After his father died in 1973,

Tolkien "worked to keep alive the world he had created in The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1949).... In all, he edited or oversaw the publication of two dozen editions of his father's works, many of which became international bestsellers."

In addition to being his father's literary executor, Tolkien spent four years organizing and compiling the myths and legends his father was creating to accompany The Lord of the Rings, eventually publishing them in 1977 as The Silmarillion. He is also credited with creating the 1954 map of Middle-earth, a copy of which is now held by the British Library.

Corey Olsen, a Tolkien expert, said, "This opened up a wealth and depth of Tolkien's imaginative world that was breathtaking." In 1996, Christopher Tolkien produced the 12-volume The History of Middle-earth, a compilation of drafts, fragments, rewrites, marginal notes and other writings culled from 70 boxes of unpublished material, which "showed that virtually everything he had published had come from his father's hand."

Thomas Shippey, a British professor who has been writing and lecturing on Tolkien for 50 years, said, "Without Christopher, we would have very little knowledge of how Tolkien created his mythology and his own legendarium."

HarperCollins UK CEO Charlie Redmayne told the Bookseller http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43102691: "Christopher was a devoted curator of his father's work and the timeless and ongoing popularity of the world that J.R.R. Tolkien created is a fitting testimony to the decades he spent bringing Middle-earth to generations of readers. The most charming of men, and a true gentleman, it was an honor and privilege to know and work with him and our thoughts are with his family at this time."

Tolkien Society chair Shaun Gunner observed: "We have lost a titan and he will be sorely missed."

I so want to visit this bookstore full of fluffy little loves! I'd have to take a ton of antihistamines, but it would be worth it!

Canadian Bookstore 'Full of Kittens & You Can Bring One Home'

Canadian bookseller Otis & Clementine's Books & Coffee http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43127722 in Upper Tantallon, Nova Scotia, "is a heavenly stop for bookworms and cat-lovers alike http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43127723" that "provides the adorable felines with a temporary home until they can be adopted," Narcity reported. Owner Ellen Helmke said they "have several kittens and usually a mama cat as well," provided by the South Paw Conservation Nova Scotia, a local rescue group. She added that "all the kittens are in and out fairly quickly, as they are adopted."

 My parents and I used to watch the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour every week for years. Jim Lehrer was the real deal, a journalist with integrity. RIP.

Obituary Note: Jim Lehrer

Longtime PBS anchorman and author Jim Lehrer http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43155792, "who for 36 years gave public television viewers a substantive alternative to network evening news programs with in-depth reporting, interviews and analysis of world and national affairs" on The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour and, later, NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, died January 23, the New York Times reported. He was 85.

Lehrer was the author of more than 20 novels, "which often drew on his reporting experiences," as well as four plays and three memoirs. The novels include White Widow (1996), No Certain Rest (2002), Eureka (2007) and Super (2010). His memoirs are We Were Dreamers (1975), A Bus of My Own (1992) and Tension City: Inside the Presidential Debates (2011).

The Times noted that "writing nights and weekends, on trains, planes and sometimes in the office, Mr. Lehrer churned out a novel almost every year for more than two decades: spy thrillers, political satires, murder mysteries and series featuring One-Eyed Mack, a lieutenant governor of Oklahoma, and Charlie Henderson, a C.I.A. agent. Top Down (2013) revolved around the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which Mr. Lehrer had covered as a young reporter in Dallas."

"His apprenticeship came at a time when every reporter, it seemed, had an unfinished novel in his desk--but Lehrer actually finished his," Texas Monthly said in a 1995 profile.

I really want to read this book, but haven't gotten the chance yet. I've seen Mrs Obama in many interviews reading from her book, though, and it sounds wonderful. I am thrilled that our former first lady won a Grammy for the audiobook edition of her book Becoming. Congrats to the greatest FLOTUS of the 21st century.

Grammy Spoken Word Winner: Becoming by Michelle Obama

The winner in the Best Spoken Word Album category at the Grammy Awards http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43181288 last night was Becoming by Michelle Obama (Penguin Random House Audio). This was the former First Lady's second Grammy nomination: her book about the White House garden, American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America, was a Best Spoken Word album nominee in 2013.

Obama, who narrated the winning audiobook, commented: "I had plenty of doubts about sharing so much of myself in Becoming, but this moment is another reminder that when we own the truth of who we are, we give ourselves the chance to connect with others in real, meaningful ways."

Touch the Dark by Karen Chance, is the first book in an urban fantasy/romance series about Cassie Palmer, a young woman who was raised by some sketchy vampires after her parents were killed. She's got powers that she can't control, of course, and in this book she learns about the genesis of her powers and that she's heir to even stronger powers of divination, though of course she wants nothing to do with them, or the people who covet these powers and want to use her for their own gain. Here's the blurb: Cassandra Palmer can see the future and communicate with spirits—talents that make her attractive to the dead and the undead. The ghosts of the dead aren’t usually dangerous; they just like to talk…a lot.

The undead are another matter.
Like any sensible girl, Cassie tries to avoid vampires. But when the bloodsucking mafioso she escaped three years ago finds Cassie again with vengeance on his mind, she’s forced to turn to the vampire Senate for protection.
The undead senators won’t help her for nothing, and Cassie finds herself working with one of their most powerful members, a dangerously seductive master vampire—and the price he demands may be more than Cassie is willing to pay....

Though this kind of urban fantasy is usually right up my alley, I found this particular novel to be a bit too rote, paint-by-numbers and cliched. Of course the master vampire has the hots for Cassie, and of course he's Dracula's older, hotter brother, so there are the requisite seduction scenes that read like a trite romance novel. There's also Cassie's strange reluctance to engage in hanky-panky, though she's very world weary and cynical, due to her upbringing, the rest of the time. It's a standard sexist interpretation of romance, in that men have to pursue women and talk them into having sex, because good girls don't like or want sex, right?! (WRONG!) There's also a great deal of info-dumping in this book, primarily to set up Cassies world and how it works. That's fine, but it's better to show through action and dialog than it is to just narrate page after page of "This is how this species works, this is what vampires are really like, or the fae, or were-creatures," because that gets boring, fairly quickly, and slows the plot to a crawl. So while I ultimately liked the book, I don't want to expend any more energy reading more of the series. It didn't enchant me enough. I'd give it a B, and recommend it to fans of Merry Gentry who like clothing descriptions and lots of sexual tension in their urban fantasies. 

A Cruel Deception by Charles Todd is the 11th Bess Crawford mystery, and this one takes place at a crossroads, with Bess wondering if she will continue working as a nurse now that the end of World War 1 has come about. Here's the blurb: In the aftermath of World War I, nurse Bess Crawford attempts to save a troubled former soldier from a mysterious killer in this eleventh book in the beloved Bess Crawford mystery series from New York Times bestselling author Charles Todd.

The Armistice of November 1918 ended the fighting, but the Great War will not be over until a Peace Treaty is drawn up and signed by all parties. Representatives from the Allies are gathering in Paris, and already ominous signs of disagreement have appeared.
Sister Bess Crawford, who has been working with the severely wounded in England in the war’s wake, is asked to carry out a personal mission in Paris for a Matron at the London headquarters of The Queen Alexandra’s.
Bess is facing decisions about her own future, even as she searches for the man she is charged with helping.  When she does locate Lawrence Minton, she finds a bitter and disturbed officer who has walked away from his duties at the Peace Conference and is well on his way toward an addiction to opiates. When she confronts him with the dangers of using laudanum, he tells her that he doesn’t care if he lives or dies, as long as he can find oblivion. But what has changed him? What is it that haunts him? He can’t confide in Bess—because the truth is so deeply buried in his mind that he can only relive it in nightmares. The officers who had shared a house with him in Paris profess to know nothing—still, Bess is reluctant to trust them even when they offer her their help. But where to begin on her own?
What is driving this man to a despair so profound it can only end with death? The war? Something that happened in Paris? To prevent a tragedy, she must get at the truth as quickly as possible—which means putting herself between Lieutenant Minton and whatever is destroying him. Or is it whoever?

The Todds (A mother/son writing team) always manage to write such hearty and fulfilling stories in their stalwart and beautifully simple prose, that I eagerly await the next installment of this series and always spring for the hardback first edition. Bess Crawford, like Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs, is a smart, sensible and caring nurse who has a gift for healing and for tracking down a mystery and examining it for answers. I enjoyed this book's look at 1919, when everyone in Europe was recovering from wars devastations, because that's a part of history we don't hear much about. I'd give this novel an A, and recommend it to anyone who has read any of the other Bess C Mysteries. 

A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult is the February book for my Tuesday night book group at the local library. I was not aware that this book takes place in an abortion clinic after a shooting by a "pro-life" madman, otherwise I would have kept it off the reading list, because there are both liberals and conservatives in our group, and we try to stay away from political hot button topics so there are no angry feelings and ugly arguments during our discussions.  Our January discussion was cancelled due to a snowstorm that forced a library closure, so I was hoping we could discuss both books, but now that I've read "Spark" I know that no one is going to want to discuss January's book, and things could descend into chaos right from the get-go. Ugh. Still, I can't deny that both sides of the debate were brought up, and the prose was clean and clear, which made the flashback plot all the easier to navigate.Here's the blurb: The warm fall day starts like any other at the Center—a women’s reproductive health services clinic—its staff offering care to anyone who passes through its doors. Then, in late morning, a desperate and distraught gunman bursts in and opens fire, taking all inside hostage.

After rushing to the scene, Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, sets up a perimeter and begins making a plan to communicate with the gunman. As his phone vibrates with incoming text messages he glances at it and, to his horror, finds out that his fifteen-year-old daughter, Wren, is inside the clinic.

But Wren is not alone. She will share the next and tensest few hours of her young life with a cast of unforgettable characters: A nurse who calms her own panic in order to save the life of a wounded woman. A doctor who does his work not in spite of his faith but because of it, and who will find that faith tested as never before. A pro-life protester, disguised as a patient, who now stands in the crosshairs of the same rage she herself has felt. A young woman who has come to terminate her pregnancy. And the disturbed individual himself, vowing to be heard.

Told in a daring and enthralling narrative structure that counts backward through the hours of the standoff, this is a story that traces its way back to what brought each of these very different individuals to the same place on this fateful day.

One of the most fearless writers of our time, Jodi Picoult tackles a complicated issue in this gripping and nuanced novel. How do we balance the rights of pregnant women with the rights of the unborn they carry? What does it mean to be a good parent? A Spark of Light will inspire debate, conversation . . . and, hopefully, understanding.

While I'm generally not a fan of thrillers, I was impressed by Picoult's handling of such a tough topic in a sensitive manner while going backwards in time through the narrative. That said, I loathed the pro-life "mole" Janine, who was a heinous hypocrit whose ignorance and duplicity were fostered by her religious zealotry. I was also angry that we never find out how Dr Ward fares, or Izzy, and things are left up in the air for several other characters. The least that the author could do after dragging us through the tensest day possible, is to let readers know what happened to the main characters after the smoke cleared. Being a long time supporter of a woman's right to choose, I was glad that many of the myths and lies about abortion were shown to be false in this book, but I wish we'd had a cleaner ending to look forward to. I'd give this book an A, and recommend it to anyone interested in the debate on women's reproductive rights.

RITA Awards Cancelled, The Mad Woman's Ball Movie, A Queen in Hiding by Sarah Kozloff, Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather, and TheTea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

There have been a lot of deaths in January 2020, so I started this year hopeful and am already viewing the year with a more jaundiced eye. Neal Peart of the fantastic Canadian rock band Rush died of cancer, and Stan  Kirsch, who played Richie on the TV show "Highlander" (I was a huge fan of that show, and not just because Adrian Paul played a hot Scot with a sword) committed suicide a couple of days ago, at only 51 years old. Add to that the recent snowstorm and this kerfuffle with the Romance Writers of America, and I am already yearning for a vacation.

RITA Awards Cancelled for 2020

After several months of heated controversy and mass resignations by members and board members of the Romance Writers of America, the association has cancelled its RITA awards in 2020. In an announcement, the RWA said that "many in the romance community have lost faith in RWA's ability to administer the 2020 RITA contest fairly, causing numerous judges and entrants to cancel their participation." It expects the 2021 awards to encompass 2019 and 2020 titles.

The RWA added that it is hiring "a consultant who specializes in awards programs and a DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] consultant" and will seek member involvement in remaking the awards. "Recent RWA Boards have worked hard to make changes to the current contest, striving to make it more diverse and inclusive, relieve judging burdens, and bring in outside voices," but those kinds of changes have been "piecemeal," and the hiatus will allow the RWA "the opportunity to take a proper amount of time to build an awards program and process--whether it's a revamped RITA contest or something entirely new--that celebrates and elevates the best in our genre."

The move isn't a surprise after the turbulence of the past half year, which started when author Courtney Milan (the pen name of Heidi Bond), a former RWA board member and an advocate for diversity in the publishing community and in romance books, tweeted that a 1999 historical romance, Somewhere Lies the Moon by Kathryn Lynn Davis (which has a heroine who is half-Chinese, like Milan), was a "f*cking racist mess."

As recounted by the Guardian, Davis and Suzan Tisdale, a romance writer and publisher who has worked with Davis, filed an ethics complaint http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43018718 with the RWA, alleging cyberbullying by Milan and a loss of professional opportunities--a three-book deal--because of the tweet. (Davis later said that there had been no final deal; rather, discussions on a deal had ended.)

Bizarrely, at the time the ethics complaint was filed, Milan, the subject of the complaint, was chair of the RWA's ethics committee. The board, it says, asked her to resign and added members to the committee who had no connection with Milan.

On December 23, the RWA board suspended Milan from the RWA for a year and barred her from any leadership positions for life. In reaction, masses of members resigned and many on the RWA board left. The RWA quickly rescinded the punishment.

In the meantime, a recall petition for RWA president Damon Suede was submitted this week to the association, which has also hired a law firm to "conduct an independent audit of the recent matter involving its code of ethics and to make recommendations on appropriate adjustments moving forward on ethics policy and procedures."

This looks like an amazing film that I will have to keep an eye out for.

Movies: The Mad Women's Ball

Melanie Laurent, the French actor (Inglourious Basterds) and filmmaker (Galveston), will write and direct The Mad Women's Ball http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43045802, a period thriller based on the novel by Victoria Mas, Variety reported. Alain Goldman's Legende Films is producing, with Laurent writing the adaptation.

A Queen in Hiding by Sarah Kozloff is an ARC I received from either the publisher or Goodreads (I am not sure which, because I sign up for free copies of books all the time, and it usually takes at least 6 weeks for them to send me one), that is part of a four book series that will be released once a month in sequence from January through April of this year. Though it claims to be an epic fantasy, I found it to be more like an overwritten script for a Netflix series. Many authors wish to follow in George RR Martin's footsteps with a Game of Thrones epic fantasy, but few have the narrative power of Martin's political gore-and-sex-laden books. Kozloff's prose is, by comparison, young and amateurish, with a lot that gets stalled by info-dumps and descriptions that go nowhere but are meant, I think, to be poetic or evocative. Here's the blurb:

Debut author Sarah Kozloff offers a breathtaking and cinematic epic fantasy of a ruler coming of age in A Queen in Hiding first in the quartet of The Nine Realms series.
Four books. Four months. Nine Realms.
Readers will be able to binge this amazing fantasy series with beautiful interlocking art across the spines of all four books.

Orphaned, exiled and hunted, Cerulia, Princess of Weirandale, must master the magic that is her birthright, become a ruthless guerilla fighter, and transform into the queen she is destined to be.
But to do it she must win the favor of the spirits who play in mortal affairs, assemble an unlikely group of rebels, and wrest the throne from a corrupt aristocracy whose rot has spread throughout her kingdom.
The Nine Realms Series
#1 A Queen in Hiding January 2020
#2 The Queen of Raiders February 2020
#3 A Broken Queen March 2020
#4 The Cerulean Queen April 2020

While I think it's obvious that Kozloff is a "debut" (meaning new) author, I still enjoyed the story arc, and I liked the definitive characters...ie the princess in hiding who has to learn to be a regular working person, (and learn empathy for the common man/woman/child) the evil sociopathic regent who enjoys the power and privilege of being on the throne enough to kill anyone to stay there, and the brilliant dreamy scholar Thane, who has to learn practical uses for his eidetic memory to help his family during wartime. There were a lot of POVs in this first book, probably because the author wanted to introduce each of the main protagonists and antagonists in a personal,intimate fashion, so that we'd know their motivations for what they were doing. That said, so many POVs got to be somewhat headache-inducing, and unnecessary. I'd give this book a B-, and recommend it to those who love epic fantasies that are clearly outlined and don't offer any surprises or gore, for that matter.

Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather is a science fiction novella that starts slow, but builds swiftly into a powerful and intricate meditation on the ethics of space travel and religious missionary work. Here's the blurb:

The sisters of the Order of Saint Rita captain their living ship into the reaches of space in Lina Rather's debut novella, Sisters of the Vast Black.
Years ago, Old Earth sent forth sisters and brothers into the vast dark of the prodigal colonies armed only with crucifixes and iron faith. Now, the sisters of the Order of Saint Rita are on an interstellar mission of mercy aboard Our Lady of Impossible Constellations, a living, breathing ship which seems determined to develop a will of its own.
When the order receives a distress call from a newly-formed colony, the sisters discover that the bodies and souls in their care―and that of the galactic diaspora―are in danger. And not from void beyond, but from the nascent Central Governance and the Church itself.

Though this short work is also debut fiction, I felt that Rather had a much better handle on hearty prose style and a surprisingly intricate plot, considering the short amount of space she was given to complete the story arc. The Reverend Mother, with her Tokyo Rose secret past life, Sister Lucia and Sister Gemma (and Sister Faustina of the perfect name) are all so well drawn as characters that they seem to live and breathe. The patriarchy, in the form of a horrible zealot priest sent to censor the Sisters adds even more spice to the already heady brew of a plot. I'd give this novella an A-, and recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Mary Doria Russell's excellent "The Sparrow" which will be used, I suspect, as a comparison standard to this novella, and any book dealing with missionaries in space, dealing with aliens.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See is the third book of hers that I have read. Each of See's novels deals with a different aspect or era of women's lives in China, often showing the power that sexism and misogyny (under the guise of tradition) have over the lives of every female in China, from ancient times to modern day society.  Here's the blurb:A thrilling new novel from author Lisa See explores the lives of a Chinese mother and her daughter who has been adopted by an American couple.

Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. There is ritual and routine, and it has been ever thus for generations. Then one day a jeep appears at the village gate—the first automobile any of them have seen—and a stranger arrives.
In this remote Yunnan village, the stranger finds the rare tea he has been seeking and a reticent Akha people. In her biggest seller, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, See introduced the Yao people to her readers. Here she shares the customs of another Chinese ethnic minority, the Akha, whose world will soon change. Li-yan, one of the few educated girls on her mountain, translates for the stranger and is among the first to reject the rules that have shaped her existence. When she has a baby outside of wedlock, rather than stand by tradition, she wraps her daughter in a blanket, with a tea cake hidden in her swaddling, and abandons her in the nearest city. (editors note: she actually takes her baby to an orphanage and watches to make sure she's taken in safely)

After mother and daughter have gone their separate ways, Li-yan slowly emerges from the security and insularity of her village to encounter modern life while Haley grows up a privileged and well-loved California girl. Despite Haley’s happy home life, she wonders about her origins; and Li-yan longs for her lost daughter. They both search for and find answers in the tea that has shaped their family’s destiny for generations.
A powerful story about a family, separated by circumstances, culture, and distance, Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane paints an unforgettable portrait of a little known region and its people and celebrates the bond that connects mothers and daughters.

I found the story very difficult to deal with (and therefore slow going) during the first few chapters. The idea that these mountain people were so sexist and superstitious that they would kill twins right after they were born was sickening. I also didn't like the fact that girl children's births were not celebrated, but boys were. Girls lives were considered worthless, yet the women of the Akha people did most of the work and helped keep the tribe going. The men were mostly idiots. Even the man that Li yan falls in love with (a childhood friend that her mother and wisewoman warns her about, but she doesn't listen) turns out to be a despicable drug addict who only wants to use and abuse her.  Li yan herself often defers to the men in her life, and is altogether too naive and trusting of people who always end up disappointing her. The powerful, cinematic descriptions of the life of the mountain tribes who farm, pick and sell pu'er tea to China and the rest of the world are riveting, and the injustices modern society brings, along with money and technology, to the villages and their people provides an engaging story for the main characters to inhabit. I'd give this book a B, and recommend it to anyone who wonders about the indigenous people, particularly the women, of China and how they fared during the 70s and 80s, after Maos Cultural Revolution and the One Child Act.

Life of Madam C.J.Walker on TV, Quote of the Day, Bookish Winners at the Golden Globes, Enchantee by Gita Trelease, The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs by Katherine Howe, Twice in a Blue Moon by Christina Lauren,and The Lady Rogue by Jenn Bennett

Welcome to 2020, fellow bibliophiles! Here's to another year of reviews of 200 books. May your TBR be plentiful and your time never wasted with bad storytelling, sagging prose or limp plots. Speaking of sagging, I turn 60 this year, and I plan to make the most of it by getting healthier and by making the best use of my time, reading and otherwise. To that end, here are some tidbits and four reviews.

I truly admire self-made women, especially women of color, who have it thrice as hard as anyone else in the business world. I am also a Tiffany Haddish fan, so that's an added bonus for me.

TV: Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker

Netflix has unveiled the official title, premiere date and a selection of first look images for its four-part limited series Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz42968767, Deadline reported. Based on the book On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker by Walker's great-great-granddaughter, A'Lelia Bundles, the series will debut March 20.

Oscar-winning actress Octavia Spencer stars as Sarah Breedlove, known as Madam C.J. Walker, "the black hair care pioneer and mogul who overcame hostile turn-of-the-century America, epic rivalries, tumultuous marriages and family challenges to become America's first black, female self-made millionaire," Deadline wrote. The cast also includes Blair Underwood, Tiffany Haddish, Carmen Ejogo, Garrett Morris, Kevin Carroll and Bill Bellamy.

Produced by SpringHill Entertainment and Wonder Street in association with Warner Bros. Television, the series is helmed by co-showrunners Elle Johnson & Janine Sherman Barrois, along with writer and co-executive producer Nicole Jefferson Asher. It is directed by Kasi Lemmons and DeMane Davis, and executive produced by Janine Sherman Barrois, Elle Johnson, Maverick Carter, LeBron James, Octavia Spencer, Mark Holder, Christine Holder, Kasi Lemmons and Jamal Henderson.

 I totally agree, that book lovers who encounter other members of their reading tribe in a bookstore create magic that enriches both parties.

Quotation of the Day

'Something Spiritual Happens'

“I like to imagine two people who might judge each other just on the way they look, but one person is holding a book the other one loves. They start talking, and something spiritual happens."That's my goal, to create that encounter."--Alsace Walentine, owner of Tombolo Books, St. Petersburg, Fla., in a Tampa Bay Times http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz42992721 article recounting how she came to open the store

 I was thrilled to see that once again, books turned into movies and TV programs won accolades at the Golden Globes!

Bookish Winners at the Golden Globes

Book-to-screen adaptations collected some prestigious hardware at last night's Golden Globe Awards http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz42992778. Winning productions that started as books or have book connections included:

TV

Chernobyl, based on many sources, including Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich: Best limited series or TV movie; Stellan Skarsgård (supporting actor in a series, limited series or motion picture made for TV)

The Loudest Voice, based on the book The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News--and Divided a Country by Gabriel Sherman: Russell Crowe (actor in a limited series or motion picture made for TV)

Fosse/Verdon, based in part on Sam Wasson's book Fosse: Michelle Williams (actress in a limited series or motion picture made for TV)

Movies

Judy, adapted from the play End of the Rainbow by Peter Quilter: Renée Zellweger (actress in a motion picture--drama)

Joker, based on D.C. Comics characters: Joaquin Phoenix (actor in a motion picture--drama); Hildur Guðnadóttir (original score, motion picture)

Here are the reviews, as promised!

 Enchantee by Gita Trelease is a delicious YA fantasy romance that takes place in 18th century France. The authors evocative prose makes you feel like you're right there in the castles and mansions and alternately freezing garrets of Paris during the revolution. Here's the blurb:

Love. Magic. Revolution...Gita Trelease’s debut fantasy about an orphaned girl who uses dark magic to save her sister and herself from ruin is “a soaring success” (NPR)
Paris is a labyrinth of twisted streets filled with beggars and thieves, revolutionaries and magicians. Camille Durbonne is one of them. She wishes she weren’t...
When smallpox kills her parents, Camille must find a way to provide for her younger sister while managing her volatile brother. Relying on magic, Camille painstakingly transforms scraps of metal into money to buy food and medicine they need. But when the coins won’t hold their shape and her brother disappears with the family’s savings, Camille pursues a richer, more dangerous mark: the glittering court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
Using dark magic forbidden by her mother, Camille transforms herself into a baroness and is swept up into life at the Palace of Versailles, where aristocrats both fear and hunger for magic. As she struggles to reconcile her resentment of the rich with the allure of glamour and excess, Camille meets a handsome young inventor, and begins to believe that love and liberty may both be possible.
But magic has its costs, and soon Camille loses control of her secrets. And when revolution erupts, Camille must choose—love or loyalty, democracy or aristocracy, reality or magic—before Paris burns.

Though at times the prose was as overdone and as gaudy with gilt as Versailles must have been in its heyday, I felt that the plot was sturdy enough to keep the story moving at a brisk trot. And while the HEA ending was welcome, it left a few minor questions unanswered, at least for me. Overall, though, a delicious novel that asks some fundamental philosophical questions of how much is really enough to make a full life? I'd give this novel, which shouldn't be in the YA genre but in the adult fantasy aisle, an A-, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in Les Miserable and the revolutionary era of France.

The Daughters Of Temperance Hobbs by Katherine Howe is the third book that contains characters from the Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, the first book in this series about generations of witches living in earlier centuries and today, trying to come to terms with their magical heritage. Here's the blurb: 

A bewitching novel of a New England history professor who must race against time to free her family from a curse, by Katherine Howe, New York Times bestselling author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane.

Connie Goodwin is an expert on America’s fractured past with witchcraft. A young, tenure-track professor in Boston, she’s earned career success by studying the history of magic in colonial America―especially women’s home recipes and medicines―and by exposing society's threats against women fluent in those skills. But beyond her studies, Connie harbors a secret: She is the direct descendant of a woman tried as a witch in Salem, an ancestor whose abilities were far more magical than the historical record shows.
When a hint from her mother and clues from her research lead Connie to the shocking realization that her partner’s life is in danger, she must race to solve the mystery behind a hundreds’-years-long deadly curse.
Flashing back through American history to the lives of certain supernaturally gifted women, The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs affectingly reveals not only the special bond that unites one particular matriarchal line, but also explores the many challenges to women’s survival across the decades―and the risks some women are forced to take to protect what they love most.

I was fascinated by the idea of having a curse that goes through the generations of women so that any man they marry dies within a short time of falling in love with them. A lot of the belief in magic and its consequences was taken for granted, as almost a given in this book, along with the condescending attitude shown toward Connie's mother Grace,who, because she's a "new age hippy" kind of woman (read: Baby Boomer generation), is given to creating charm bracelets and giving out warnings to her daughter of what will happen if she doesn't break off her relationship with Sam, her beloved.When Connie decides instead to break the curse via a recipe from Deliverance Dane's book, initially she finds few allies, but, her mother does help her in the end, and all is well. The clean prose helped the labyrinthine plot move along stolidly toward an HEA ending. Having lived in Cambridge,Mass, (as a grad student) I found the glamorizing of the area in and around Harvard to be amusing. For those who have a lot of money, its fine, but for poor grad students who don't have enough money to ride the T on the regular, it's a nightmarish place to live.  I'd give this book a B, and recommend it to those interested in magic and the Salem Witch trials.

Twice in a Blue Moon by Christina Lauren is a contemporary romance that takes place in LA/Hollywood and set locations, and in a tiny town upstate called Guernville. The protagonist is a naive girl named Tate who gives her heart and secrets away to the first boy she meets while on vacation with her grandmother in London. Unsurprisingly, the boy trades those secrets for cash at the first opportunity, breaking her heart, but also beginning her climb to fame as an actress. Years later, on the set of a movie, Tate meets up with that same betraying boy, who is now a man and the scriptwriter for the film. He tells her (SPOILER) that he betrayed her to get money for a cancer treatment for his grandfather, because he had no other choice. She of course forgives him and they spark and dart at one another until they can begin their affair again. I found that to be ridiculously unlikely and stupid, considering that Sam, the betraying jerk, never actually talks about all the other options available for cancer treatment, including Pharmaceutical companies that will help by giving away their product to people who can't afford it. There are also insurance companies that will pay for treatments, and GoFundMe campaigns, plus a host of other ideas. Also, if his grandparent had discovered he'd done such a dishonorable thing in his name, he would have been horrified and very disappointed in his grandson. As it was, gramps died 10 years later, so Sam sold someone he supposedly loves out for 10 years for an old dying man, who should have been informed so that he could make his own choices. The fact that he supposedly didn't suspect a thing was also a red flag, when gramps was obviously a very savvy man with a conscience, unlike his grandson. I never would have forgiven someone who had done something so horrible to me for his own gain. But our heroine is not made of stern stuff. She's still naive, after all these years, and even forgives her douchebag famous father, who uses her and betrays her again for his own needs. Ugh, what an idiot! Here's the blurb: Sam Brandis was Tate Jones’s first: Her first love. Her first everything. Including her first heartbreak.

During a whirlwind two-week vacation abroad, Sam and Tate fell for each other in only the way that first loves do: sharing all of their hopes, dreams, and deepest secrets along the way. Sam was the first, and only, person that Tate—the long-lost daughter of one of the world’s biggest film stars—ever revealed her identity to. So when it became clear her trust was misplaced, her world shattered for good.

Fourteen years later, Tate, now an up-and-coming actress, only thinks about her first love every once in a blue moon. When she steps onto the set of her first big break, he’s the last person she expects to see. Yet here Sam is, the same charming, confident man she knew, but even more alluring than she remembered. Forced to confront the man who betrayed her, Tate must ask herself if it’s possible to do the wrong thing for the right reason… and whether “once in a lifetime” can come around twice.
With Christina Lauren’s signature “beautifully written and remarkably compelling” (Sarah J. Maas, New York Times bestselling author) prose and perfect for fans of Emily Giffin and Jennifer Weiner, Twice in a Blue Moon is an unforgettable and moving novel of young love and second chances.   

I didn't find this novel all that moving or compelling, (or unforgettable) though it was well written and the plot swift and sure. I'd give it a C+, and only recommend it to those who find very naive women and their bad love interests compelling.

The Lady Rogue by Jenn Bennett is a fun YA fantasy for all the fans of Dracula and the history of Vlad Tepes in Romania. The prose here is light and zippy and the plot moves as stealthy as a fox in the dark woods. Here's the blurb: The Last Magician meets A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue in this thrilling tale filled with magic and set in the mysterious Carpathian Mountains where a girl must hunt down Vlad the Impaler’s cursed ring in order to save her father.

Some legends never die…
Traveling with her treasure-hunting father has always been a dream for Theodora. She’s read every book in his library, has an impressive knowledge of the world’s most sought-after relics, and has all the ambition in the world. What she doesn’t have is her father’s permission. That honor goes to her father’s nineteen-year-old protégé—and once-upon-a-time love of Theodora’s life—Huck Gallagher, while Theodora is left to sit alone in her hotel in Istanbul.
Until Huck arrives from an expedition without her father and enlists Theodora’s help in rescuing him. Armed with her father’s travel journal, the reluctant duo learns that her father had been digging up information on a legendary and magical ring that once belonged to Vlad the Impaler—more widely known as Dracula—and that it just might be the key to finding him.

Journeying into Romania, Theodora and Huck embark on a captivating adventure through Gothic villages and dark castles in the misty Carpathian Mountains to recover the notorious ring. But they aren’t the only ones who are searching for it. A secretive and dangerous occult society with a powerful link to Vlad the Impaler himself is hunting for it, too. And they will go to any lengths—including murder—to possess it.

I liked Theo's determination, but not her hair-brained rushing into dangerous situations without regard to the risk to life and limb. I also didn't understand why her father was such a douchebag about letting her get involved, when he likely knew she was going to come after him and try to find the cursed ring. Still the atmospheric prose and the interesting history and characters make the trip worthwhile. I'd give this adventurous YA novel a B, and recommend it to those who like the true history of vampires mingled with the fantasy element of cursed objects.