B&N's New Tablet, Watership Down on TV, Marilla of Green Gables by Sarah McCoy, Navigating the Stars by Maria V Snyder, The Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain and Bellewether by Susanna Kearsley

I have an old Nook, first generation, that I have not used a lot, mainly because I discovered that I don't enjoy reading off of a screen as much as I enjoy turning the pages of a real book. But this new tablet from B&N sounds pretty cool, even for those of us who are old school bibliophiles. 

B&N Introduces New Nook 7" Tablet

Barnes & Noble has introduced a new Nook 7" tablet

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz39115045,

which has expanded storage and a $49.99 price tag. B&N said the device

offers twice the storage space as the previous model at 16GB (expandable

up to 128GB), a front and rear facing camera, Bluetooth capability, a

headphone jack, a speaker and a microphone.

Bill Wood, chief digital officer for B&N, described the tablet as "a

lightweight and affordable option for book lovers who also want the

ability to browse, send e-mails, and listen to music. We think this new

tablet will delight both current Nook users as well as introduce new

customers to this affordable Nook device."

I am looking forward to seeing this adaptation of Watership Down right before Christmas on Netflix. With the cast that they've put together, I can only imagine it will be a stellar show.

TV: Watership Down

A trailer has been released for the Netflix/BBC One co-production of

Watership Down

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz39152481 that

"gives off an almost Game of Thrones vibe as it follows the adventure,

courage and survival of a band of rabbits on their flight from the

intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their home," Deadline

reported.

The animated four-part miniseries, based on the classic book by Richard

Adams, features an A-list cast including James McAvoy, Daniel Kaluuya,

Nicholas Hoult, Ben Kingsley, John Boyega, Gemma Arterton, Rosamund

Pike, Gemma Chan, Peter Capaldi, Taron Egerton, Miles Jupp, Freddie Fox,

Mackenzie Crook, Olivia Colman, Anne-Marie Duff, Rory Kinnear, Tom

Wilkinson, Jason Watkins, Craig Parkinson, Henry Goodman, Lee Ingleby,

Charlotte Spencer and Daniel Rigby.

Watership Down was produced and directed by Noam Murro, co-directed by

Alan Short and Seamus Malone, and adapted for the screen by Tom Bidwell

(My Mad Fat Diary). It debuts on BBC One from December 22 to 23, and

will be released on Netflix December 23.

Marilla of Green Gables by Sarah McCoy is a prequel to the fantastic Canadian Anne Of Green Gables series written by Lucy Maud Montgomery and published in 1908, the year before my grandmother was born. I read all of the Anne books back when I was about 10 years old, and I loved them so much I remember rereading them when I was in college. So I was concerned about this young writer taking up the mantle of LMM, and how she'd fill those big shoes. I need not have worried, as McCoy hits a home run right from the first chapter, with its elegant and evocative prose, all the way to the fascinating ending. Marilla is a difficult woman to like in the Anne books, because she's so strict and stoic and charmless, but through this volume we begin to understand Marilla through her past tragedies and triumphs, and we see how the death of her mother during childbirth shaped her as a person. Here's the blurb:

A bold, heartfelt tale of life at Green Gables . . . before Anne: A marvelously entertaining and moving historical novel, set in rural Prince Edward Island in the nineteenth century, that imagines the young life of spinster Marilla Cuthbert, and the choices that will open her life to the possibility of heartbreak—and unimaginable greatness.
Plucky and ambitious, Marilla Cuthbert is thirteen years old when her world is turned upside down. Her beloved mother dies in childbirth, and Marilla suddenly must bear the responsibilities of a farm wife: cooking, sewing, keeping house, and overseeing the day-to-day life of Green Gables with her brother, Matthew and father, Hugh.
In Avonlea—a small, tight-knit farming town on a remote island—life holds few options for farm girls. Her one connection to the wider world is Aunt Elizabeth "Izzy" Johnson, her mother’s sister, who managed to escape from Avonlea to the bustling city of St. Catharines. An opinionated spinster, Aunt Izzy’s talent as a seamstress has allowed her to build a thriving business and make her own way in the world.
Emboldened by her aunt, Marilla dares to venture beyond the safety of Green Gables and discovers new friends and new opportunities. Joining the Ladies Aid Society, she raises funds for an orphanage run by the Sisters of Charity in nearby Nova Scotia that secretly serves as a way station for runaway slaves from America. Her budding romance with John Blythe, the charming son of a neighbor, offers her a possibility of future happiness—Marilla is in no rush to trade one farm life for another. She soon finds herself caught up in the dangerous work of politics, and abolition—jeopardizing all she cherishes, including her bond with her dearest John Blythe. Now Marilla must face a reckoning between her dreams of making a difference in the wider world and the small-town reality of life at Green Gables.

At last I was able to grasp why Marilla was so freaked out over Anne's interest in John Blythe's son, because she was thwarted in her desire for John due to her duty to her brother and the farm at Green Gables. The subplot of seeing slaves to freedom via the underground railroad was unexpected and fascinating. McCoy's excellent storytelling will keep readers turning pages into the wee hours. I certainly couldn't put it down. I'd give this wonderful story an A, and recommend it to anyone who read and loved the Anne of Green Gables series.

Navigating the Stars by Maria V Snyder is a new YA science fiction series, self published by the author of the truly delightful Poison Study series (among others). I've read everything that Snyder has written, and was thoroughly delighted and entertained with each (traditionally published) book, which I had assumed was well received by other readers as well. So I was surprised that Snyder chose to self publish this series, but I probably shouldn't be in this day and age where everyone seems to be publishing e-books and reaping the profits for themselves, instead of splitting it with agents and publishing houses. Still, I was a bit nervous, having read so many poorly written self pubbed books in the past. I need not have had a moment of fear, though, because Snyder, ever the professional, comes through with a ripping good yarn that takes place in the far future when mankind has seeded many other planets and discovered groups of Chinese terra cotta warrior statues on a number of them, for reasons no one can discern. Here's the blurb:

“The answer is no, Lyra,” my mother utters her favorite—I swear—phrase.
No means I have to travel with them to another planet—again.
No means leaving all my friends fifty years in the past. Thanks, Einstein.
Seventeen-year-old Lyra Daniels can’t truly blame Einstein or her parents for their impending move across the Milky Way Galaxy. It’s all due to the invention of the Q-net, which made traveling the vast distances in space possible—with one big caveat: the time dilation. But that never stopped Lyra's ancestors from exploring the Milky Way, searching for resources and exoplanets to colonize. What they didn’t expect to find is life-sized terracotta Warriors buried on twenty-one different exoplanets.
... Make that twenty-two.
As the Galaxy’s leading experts on the Warriors, Lyra's parents are thrilled by the new discovery, sending them—and her—fifty years into the future. Her social life in ruins, she fills her lonely days by illegally worming into the Q-net. The only person close to her age is the annoyingly irresistible security officer who threatens to throw her into the brig.
After the planet they just left goes silent—meaning no communications from them at all—security has bigger problems to deal with than Lyra, especially when vital data files go missing. But that's just the beginning, because they’re not as alone as they thought on their new planet... and suddenly time isn't the only thing working against them.

The space adventure and battles against aliens are measured against the romantic thread running through the fast moving plot, which still manages to give the protagonists plenty of room to grow as characters. I especially loved Lyra's stubborn refusal to give up on the warrior project and on "worming" even when she faced detention and censure and the disapproval of her parents and the officers in charge of security. I love gutsy female protagonists, and Snyder specializes in making her heroines tough but relatable. I'd give this novel an A, and recommend it to anyone looking for a zingy space adventure. One small caveat, when the characters "text" one another, it's in italics that always lack the letter "D." There is no explanation given for this bizarre typographic anomaly, but I felt I should warn nitpicking readers that it is there, and it can be annoying.

The Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain is a sort of hybrid science fiction romance with literary pretentions, similar to The Time Traveler's Wife. The idea of a young woman pregnant woman discovering that her fetus has a heart condition that will kill it once it's born is nothing new, but Chamberlain posits what could happen if the brother in law of this woman is a time traveler from 2018 who knows that her fetus could get surgery in utero in the future that would save it's life and the life of the mother, who believes the father of her child is dead (he was a soldier in the unpopular Vietnam War). Of course Hunter, the time traveler, feels that he must help Carly, the pregnant gal, get out of 1970 and into 2001, when fetal surgery is new, but survivable, yet time travel is an inexact science, or a delicate one, and one small problem can send the traveler to a different time than they'd expected, which is, of course, what happens. Here's the blurb:

When Carly Sears, a young woman widowed by the Vietnam war, receives the news that her unborn baby girl has a heart defect, she is devastated. It is 1970, and she is told that nothing can be done to help her child. But her brother-in-law, a physicist with a mysterious past, tells her that perhaps there is a way to save her baby. What he suggests is something that will shatter every preconceived notion that Carly has. Something that will require a kind of strength and courage she never knew existed. Something that will mean an unimaginable leap of faith on Carly's part.
And all for the love of her unborn child.
The Dream Daughter is a rich, genre-spanning, breathtaking novel about one mother's quest to save her child, unite her family, and believe in the unbelievable. Diane Chamberlain pushes the boundaries of faith and science to deliver a novel that you will never forget. Publisher's Weekly:Chamberlain’s exciting and heartfelt novel (after The Stolen Marriage) follows one woman who risks everything to travel through time and save the life of her unborn child. In 1970, after the death of her husband in the Vietnam War, pregnant Carly Sears moves in with her sister, Patti, and brother-in-law, Hunter, at their beach home in Nags Head, N.C. There, Carly finds that tragedy has followed her: she discovers that her unborn child has a fatal heart defect. It’s at this point that Hunter reveals to Carly that he is a time traveler from the future and offers Carly a solution: she can time travel to 2001, where her child can receive life-saving fetal surgery. Carly finally believes Hunter’s claims about time travel when his predictions about the tragic events at Kent State come true days later. After time traveling to 2001, Carly and her unborn child undergo an experimental surgery, remaining in New York City near the hospital prior to and after her daughter Joanna’s birth. But Carly’s plan to return to 1970 with Joanna is derailed when her daughter becomes ill and must remain hospitalized. Chamberlain expertly blends the time-travel elements with the wonderful story of a mother’s love and the depths of sacrifice she makes for her child. This is a page-turning crowd-pleaser.

Though I did enjoy the gripping plot and the precise, clean prose, I had a few problems with the characters, namely Patti, whose vitriol for her husband turns on and off like a spigot depending on whether or not she is reassured of the return of Carly from the future (and she gets pretty ugly with her sister for needing to return to the future again to pick up her daughter and bring her back to 1970's North Carolina), and I found Carly's obsession with her teenage daughter to be almost pathological, when she realizes that Joanna has a family who love and care for her well, and that she would not be happy back in 1970 with no technology or medical help for her ongoing heart issues. If Carly really was as good of a mother as she yearns to be, she'd realize the best and most loving thing to do for her child is to leave her alone to grow up in 2013. But Carly only goes back to the 70s when she discovers that her husband isn't dead, but was actually a POW who needs her when he returns home, broken and unbowed. So she tells her daughter the truth, at the last moment, and that sets up a somewhat sentimental, soppy ending for what was a fairly decent book, marred by overly melodramatic characters. I'd give it a B, and recommend it to those who like a good weeper with speculative fictional elements.

Bellewether by Susanna Kearsley is a historical romantic paranormal fiction mashup that starts slow, but builds to a solid conclusion. This is one of those books that requires a bit of patience to get into, about 75 pages worth, but once you've gotten the lay of the land and the rhythm of the characters, the plot starts to march along at a steady and satisfying pace. Here's the blurb:

"The house, when I first saw it, seemed intent on guarding what it knew; but we all learned, by the end of it, that secrets aren't such easy things to keep."
It's late summer, war is raging, and families are torn apart by divided loyalties and deadly secrets. In this complex and dangerous time, a young French Canadian lieutenant is captured and billeted with a Long Island family, an unwilling and unwelcome guest. As he begins to pitch in with the never-ending household tasks and farm chores, Jean-Philippe de Sabran finds himself drawn to the daughter of the house. Slowly, Lydia Wilde comes to lean on Jean-Philippe, true soldier and gentleman, until their lives become inextricably intertwined. Legend has it that the forbidden love between Jean-Philippe and Lydia ended tragically, but centuries later, the clues they left behind slowly unveil the true story. Library Journal:"RITA Award—winning author Kearsley (The Firebird) pens a captivating tale of a Long Island family caught up in the tumultuous events of the French and Indian War (1754—63) that culminated in the fall of French Canada to the British. Kearsley skillfully creates an atmosphere of parallel times between past and present by connecting a random object from the end of each of Charley's present-day chapters to a like object at the start of the succeeding chapter belonging to Lydia or Jean-Philippe. This magical feeling is enhanced by the ghostly presence that Charley encounters at the museum site and the legends she learns about the ill-fated lovers. VERDICT Rich characterizations and vivid historical flavor will keep readers enthralled in both past and present story lines. Highly recommended for Kearsley's many admirers and fans of romantic dual-time historical fiction."
I was certain that I knew who the ghost was, but I was wrong, and it turned out that the ghost was someone I'd never suspected throughout the novel (I won't spoil it for you.) It took me awhile to warm up to Charley, who is the woman running the museum in the current day, but once I got beyond her somewhat chilly exterior, I found her more palatable as a character. Meanwhile, however, the French Canadian Jean Phillipe and Lydia Wilde are fascinating, and their life on a Long Island farm is fascinating. I wish that the author had added more about their life together, but despite that yearning, I still enjoyed the excellent storytelling and lush prose. A heartfelt B+ for this inspiring novel full of memorable characters. 
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