The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie: A Miss Marple Mystery (Read Christie 2023 March Selection)

Publication Date: July 1942

Length:  240 pages

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

If you are reading this then you probably already noticed my rating is only 3 stars. This was an interesting dilemma for me because I actually enjoyed the book but as I'll explain later it just didn't involve enough intrigue to warrant a high rating. Also, we will address the fact that this is a "Miss Marple mystery".....but is it really? False advertising here if you ask me!

Siblings Jerry and Joanna have moved to the town of Lymstock temporarily to allow Jerry to recuperate from injuries sustained in a war time plane crash. He is told by his doctor to find a nice, quiet place where nothing ever happens and he thinks he has until he begins to see there is a dark spirit hanging over the town with anonymous letters being delivered to various townspeople. They are letters designed to insinuate nasty gossip that may or may not be true. Apparently this has been going on for awhile and although distressing, it is not taken too terribly seriously until one woman commits suicide, despondent over the information contained in one. 

Jerry and Joanna are motivated by curiosity and duty to find out who is writing these letters and why. Becoming attached to the adult, yet childlike, daughter of the suicide victim, they both feel responsible for Megan and want to know how her mother was driven to take her own life. As they continue to watch things unfold around them things take an even more sinister turn.

This book had a lot of great things going for it. The main characters were witty and seemed to be a bit world wise compared to the villagers, but were kind and interested in their lives. When the letters begin, it is fun to see things through Jerry's eyes as he tries to make sense of what is happening without giving in to drama and hysteria. His sister Joanna is a bit more flighty and materialistic but we see her change and begin to mature throughout the story. I liked the dynamic between the siblings and the warmth they had for each other when it counted. 

As for the mystery part, it is a bit on the weak side, although I'm learning with Christie that patience is key and she really likes to develop the story through lots of dialogue and things are never what they seem in the beginning. There wasn't really a whole lot to it other than the letters, the suicide, and the reasons behind them, but when the clues come together I admit it was really unexpected and had little nuances that were cleverly woven in. Where it really fell flat for me was the Miss Marple part. She enters into the story only in the last 50 pages or so and does very little. I think that was the point here and it was supposed to seem that she looks around and quickly deduces the answer but I didn't like it. You walk away feeling strongly that this is Jerry's story, not Jane's. Still, it was a satisfying ending. 

Not my favorite of Christie's books but honestly I kind of liked Jerry and Joanna and would like to read another book with them in it. It was kind of sad to reach the ending and know they were just two of many minor characters in one book. 

 

Can't Wait Wednesday: King Alfred's Daughter by David Stokes

 

My featured book for Can't Wait Wednesday, hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings is....King Alfred's Daughter by David Stokes. It caught my eye immediately at NetGalley because although I'm seeing a lot more books in recent years about King Alfred and the Viking Era, I've not seen one dedicated to his daughter, Aethelflaed. This one is not a mystery, or a romance based book but rather the type of historical fiction I love best: the real facts woven with fictional drama to represent what probably happened, what people probably said, and what they probably did. It should be both entertaining and informational. Can't wait!

March 28, 2023

Historical Fiction

Book description courtesy of NetGalley:

King Alfred is dead and the achievements that made him great are in jeopardy. Rebels challenge the succession of his son Edward to the Wessex throne, and his old ally in Mercia is sick. The Vikings in the Danelaw sense the time has come to complete their conquest of England.

It falls on Alfred’s firstborn, his daughter, Æthelflæd, to unite the Anglo-Saxons. Reluctantly, she takes up the challenge. But can a woman rebuild ruined towns and lead men into battle against hardened Viking warriors? And can Æthelflæd fulfil her father’s dream of uniting England?

Based on contemporary sources and archaeological evidence, King Alfred’s Daughter is rich in drama, family conflict and historical achievement.

Classics Club Spin #33: Number Reveal

 

Today is the day to see which number I got for the Classics Club Spin!  Drumroll......18! I am very excited because number 18 on my list is Now, Voyager by Olive Higgins Prouty.  I have meant to read this book for YEARS as it is in the top five of my all time favorite classic movies. It is my favorite Bette Davis movie after All About Eve and I had no idea there was a book until years after I'd fallen in love with the movie. This spin will finally get me moving to read the novel that inspired it. So April is looking like a lot of fun! I will post my review on my Classics Club page when I am finished with it, by April 30th. 

Publication Date:  January 1, 1941

Length: 284 pages

 

Book summary courtesy of Goodreads:

Boston blueblood Charlotte Vale has led an unhappy, sheltered life. Lonely, dowdy, repressed, and pushing 40, Charlotte finds salvation at a sanitarium, where she undergoes an emotional and physical transformation. After her extreme makeover, the new Charlotte tests her mettle by embarking on a cruise—and finds herself in a torrid love affair with a married man which ends at the conclusion of the voyage. But only then can the real journey begin, as Charlotte is forced to navigate a new life for herself. While Now, Voyager is a tear-jerking romance, it is at the same time the empowering story of a woman who finds the strength to chart her own course in life; who discovers love, sex, and even motherhood outside of marriage; and who learns that men are, ultimately, dispensable in the quest for happiness and fulfillment.

Falls the Shadow by Sharon Kay Penman

Publication Date: 1988

Length: 592 pages

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

I originally was not going to write a review for this book until I'd written one for Here Be Dragons, book one of the Welsh princes trilogy. But I read that one two years ago and I've honestly forgotten a lot. So I decided to go ahead and finish this one, book two, and give my thoughts on it. Sharon Penman is one of my favorite authors and I always look forward to starting a new book of hers. While this one was not as engaging for me as I'd hoped it would be, it nevertheless is still a masterpiece of the time period she's covering. 

I really felt like this story was two timelines in one. Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester and Llewellyn of Wales both take center stage, with de Montfort monopolizing most of the book. It is part of the Welsh princes trilogy but it felt more like Simon's tale. When it begins, he has gone to try to reclaim his inheritance from his cousin, the Earl of Chester, who has no heirs and was given the title by King John, who saw fit to disinherit de Montfort's family. This opening scene sets the stage for Simon's courage and boldness as he is taking a chance that he will be rebuffed and humiliated. He eventually achieves his goal along with the admiration of those who are surprised he is able to pull off such an unlikely feat. 

He eventually weds, Eleanor, King Henry III's sister and develops the trust of the King. When Henry sides with other influential nobles against Simon, their relationship begins to sour. Throughout the first half of the book a lot of time is devoted to describing how these events came to be and why Simon and Henry begin to fall out with each other. Simon is charismatic and fearless, while Henry is portrayed as weak willed, heavily influenced by his mother and wife's relatives, and frustrated by what he sees as insubordination by Simon and Eleanor to his rightful place as the King. As tensions grow and Henry is forced to abide by the Provisions of Oxford, the document setting up accountability by the King to his barons, both men are pushed over the threshold into all out war.

Woven within the main storyline is also the relationship between Simon and Henry's sons. Prince Edward is the anti-thesis of his father, a born warrior with a restless nature. He spends time with Bran and Harry, Simon's sons, getting into a lot of mischief. Although Edward is not able to defeat Simon initially, losing to him at the Battle of Lewes in 1264, he eventually manages to escape and the two will meet later in the epic showdown at Evesham. In between, Simon essentially rules England for a year and sets the background for representative government, which is why he is still relevant in history books today. 

As for Llewellyn the Last, grandson of Llewellyn the Great, several parts are devoted to his relationship with his brothers, especially Dafydd, and his victory in establishing, for a time, an alliance between himself and de Montfort. We see Llewellyn grow from a young boy into a ruler, harkening back to his grandfather whom he loved and admired while having a very difficult relationship with his father and mother. Unfortunately, his future remains insecure as things do not go as planned for his country when de Montfort is unable to fulfill his own plans for England. Without giving away the entire story, it is clear that neither man's path to victory is guaranteed. The ending is both compelling and heartbreaking. 

I think the main reason this book became a bit of a slog to get through is that it was very dry. A lot of the relevance of de Montfort and his place in history is due to his involvement in the battles between the barons and the King and the balance of power between both. Without proper background knowledge and the intricacies of the legal documents involved with it all, one easily becomes lost and confused. I know I often did. There were times I spent looking up information online just to understand what was being discussed. I felt this way sometimes in Penman's book Time and Chance, which detailed King Henry II and Thomas Becket's squabbles but the difference was I somehow cared a lot more about the two men as people, not just their feud. With Falls the Shadow I just didn't feel as attached to Simon or this King Henry. There were also a huge number of people coming and going in the novel that just seemed to be irrelevant and made it confusing to keep track of everyone.

Penman is always a wonderful author so I can't say the book was not worth it, and certainly I came away with a good sense of the time. It is not easy to find historical fiction on the people featured here so that makes it worth the read. Hopefully the third novel, The Reckoning, will be more to my taste as it covers Wales and the final battle between Edward and Llewellyn. I plan on reading and reviewing it eventually but am taking a break from this trilogy for a bit. 

 

Can't Wait Wednesday: The King's Pleasure by Alison Weir

 

For this week's Can't Wait Wednesday, hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings, I am looking forward to The King's Pleasure by Alison Weir. She is one of my favorite non-fiction authors and this is sure to be a solid fictional account of the life of Henry the Eighth. It's only natural that she'd write this one after her bestselling novels about his six wives. Hoping this one will be entertaining. 

May 30, 2023

Historical Fiction

Book description courtesy of NetGalley

The New York Times bestselling author of the Six Tudor Queens series explores the private side of the legendary king Henry VIII and his dramatic and brutal reign in this extraordinary historical novel.

Having completed her Six Tudor Queens series of novels on the wives of Henry VIII, extensively researched and written from each queen's point of view, Alison Weir now gives Henry himself a voice, telling the story of his remarkable thirty-six-year reign and his six marriages. 

Young Henry began his rule as a magnificent and chivalrous Renaissance prince who embodied every virtue. He had all the qualities to make a triumph of his kingship, yet we remember only the violence. Henry famously broke with the Pope, founding the Church of England and launching a religious revolution that divided his kingdom. He beheaded two of his wives and cast aside two others. He died a suspicious, obese, disease-riddled tyrant, old before his time. His reign is remembered as one of dangerous intrigue and bloodshed—and yet the truth is far more complex.

The King's Pleasure brings to life the idealistic monarch who expanded Parliament, founded the Royal Navy, modernized medical training, composed music and poetry, and patronized the arts. A passionate man in search of true love, he was stymied by the imperative to produce a male heir, as much a victim of circumstance as his unhappy wives. Had fate been kinder to him, the history of England would have been very different.

Here is the story of the private man. To his contemporaries, he was a great king, a legend in his own lifetime. And he left an extraordinary legacy—a modern Britain.