Gods of Jade and Shadows

Gods of Jade and Shadows- Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Del Ray
Release Date: July 23, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: The Jazz Age is in full swing, but Casiopea Tun is too busy cleaning the floors of her wealthy grandfather’s house to listen to any fast tunes. Nevertheless, she dreams of a life far from her dusty small town in southern Mexico. A life she can call her own. 

Yet this new life seems as distant as the stars, until the day she finds a curious wooden box in her grandfather’s room. She opens it—and accidentally frees the spirit of the Mayan god of death, who requests her help in recovering his throne from his treacherous brother. Failure will mean Casiopea’s demise, but success could make her dreams come true.

In the company of the strangely alluring god and armed with her wits, Casiopea begins an adventure that will take her on a cross-country odyssey from the jungles of Yucatán to the bright lights of Mexico City—and deep into the darkness of the Mayan underworld.

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Casiopea Tun is the poor relation of the wealthiest family in a small town in southern Mexico.  She resents every cruelty aimed at her, and dreams of escaping to live a life of her own.  What she doesn't expect is to accidentally free a trapped god and travel with him on a cross-country quest to return him to the throne stolen by his brother.  From small dusty towns in the Yucatan to the bright lights of Mexico City to the shadowy realm of the Mayan underworld, Casiopea's greatest journey may be the realm of the mortal, and immortal, heart.

Gods of Jade and Shadow is a book for anyone who loves fantasy and loves to imagine the crossing paths of ancient gods and the modern world.  Here the modern world is Jazz Age Mexico, with short hair, fast cars, and bright lights; while the ancient world is Xibalba, the Mayan Underworld, and the struggle between twin brothers Hun-Kamé and Vucub-Kamé, the Gods of Death.  Moreno-Garcia uses a beautiful, almost lyric, style of writing that reminded me of hearing classic myths and fairy tales spoken aloud.  She paints the world in brilliant colors of jewels and shadows and you can feel the heat of the sun and the dust of Casiopea's travels on your skin.  Casiopea delights in seeing the exciting world outside of her tiny village and the reader- and Hun-Kamé- cannot help but share in her innocent delight.  We also easily share in her terror as Hun-Kamé draws her further in his quest to regain his throne and she faces sorcerers and ghosts straight out of horror stories.

Above all, Gods of Jade and Shadow is a story about building your own world and choosing your own path, even when you are sure that you have no choices.  Casiopea learns who she is and her own inner strength in ways that are both heart-breaking and heart-filling.  A story full of duality every step of the way, it had me smiling and crying, fearful and hopeful, and seeing the characters and their worlds change along with the adventure was completely wonderful.  

It would not be wrong to call this a modern classic, and a must-read tale for fantasy lovers, those who love myths and legends, from Beauty and the Beast to The Odyssey to Neil Gaiman's American Gods.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Work of Art

The Work of Art- Mimi Matthews
Perfectly Proper Press
Release Date: July 23, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: An Uncommon Beauty…

Hidden away in rural Devonshire, Phyllida Satterthwaite has always been considered more odd than beautiful. But in London, her oddity has made her a sensation. Far worse, it’s caught the eye of the sinister Duke of Moreland—a notorious art collector obsessed with acquiring one-of-a-kind treasures. To escape the duke’s clutches, she’s going to need a little help.

An Unlikely Hero…

Captain Arthur Heywood’s days of heroism are long past. Grievously injured in the Peninsular War, he can no longer walk unaided, let alone shoot a pistol. What use can he possibly be to a damsel in distress? He has nothing left to offer except his good name.

Can a marriage of convenience save Philly from the vengeful duke? Or will life with Arthur put her—and her heart—in more danger than ever?

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Phyllida Satterthwaite's uncle has swept her away from rural Devonshire and to London, promising her a season and a chance at an advantageous marriage.  Little does she know, he has already chosen her husband: the rich and sinister Duke of Moreland.  When neither her uncle nor Moreland are willing to take no for an answer, Philly turns to the one friend she has managed to make in London: Captain Arthur Heywood.  But can even a marriage of convenience save her from an unhinged madman?

Like Matthews' earlier Holiday by Gaslight, The Work of Art is a beautifully written and emotionally satisfying story of two people who discover that they are their best selves when together.  Philly is innocent and trusting, yet not in an obnoxious too-stupid-to-live way.  She has a soft spot for injured creatures, whether animals or people, and is willing to look beyond a person's exterior to see the hurt beneath- making her far more understanding of some of the cruelty the London elite can dish out than Captain Heywood is!  She's patient and kind, and turns out to be exactly who Arthur needs to help him become himself again.  Arthur returned from the Peninsular Wars injured both physically and mentally. He retreats into a reclusive life in the country to handle the nightmares that followed him home and can't imagine being good for anything now that he's permanently injured. When he offers to marry Philly to protect her, it's because he can't challenge the other men to duels and kill them. 

 Philly much prefers marrying the man she has already fallen for to a pile of dead bodies, and it is her sweetly understanding manner, and her love,  that slowly begin to heal Arthur.  I loved how she is always willing to talk to Arthur about what bothers her, and that the frequent misunderstandings they have due to inexperience and poor self esteem get solved without allowing them to build up into weeks-long dramas. The emotional bonds between Philly and Arthur are palpable from the first and Matthews did a wonderful job of strengthening them in natural ways.  Matthews also does an excellent job balancing romance and menace with her villains and the danger hanging over Philly's head throughout the book.  The reader gets to enjoy seeing a beautiful romance unfolding while still feeling on the edge of danger the entire time.

A definite must read for romance lovers, and one of the best Mimi Matthews books I've read in ages!        

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Fire and Fortitude

Fire and Fortitude: The US Army in the Pacific War, 1941-1943- John C. McManus
Dutton Caliber
Release Date: July 30, 2019

Rating:
📚📚

Synopsis: John C. McManus, one of our most highly acclaimed historians of World War II, takes readers from Pearl Harbor—a rude awakening for a military woefully unprepared for war—to Makin, a sliver of coral reef where the Army was tested against the increasingly desperate Japanese. In between were nearly two years of punishing combat as the Army transformed, at times unsteadily, from an undertrained garrison force into an unstoppable juggernaut, and America evolved from an inward-looking nation into a global superpower.
 At the pinnacle of this richly told story are the generals: Douglas MacArthur, a military autocrat driven by his dysfunctional lust for fame and power; Robert Eichelberger, perhaps the greatest commander in the theater yet consigned to obscurity by MacArthur's jealousy; "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell, a prickly soldier miscast in a diplomat's role; and Walter Krueger, a German-born officer who came to lead the largest American ground force in the Pacific. Enriching the narrative are the voices of men otherwise lost to history: the uncelebrated Army grunts who endured stifling temperatures, apocalyptic tropical storms, rampant malaria and other diseases, as well as a fanatical enemy bent on total destruction. 

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Reading about World War II generally begins with the European theater: Normandy, the Battle of Britain, Dunkirk, etc. For Americans, Pearl Harbor may be as far into the Pacific theater as they go.  Further reading generally focuses on the Navy and sea battles.  So I was very interested to read John C. McManus' Fire and Fortitude: The US Army in the Pacific War, 1941-1943 and learn more about the early Pacific war and the army.

Spoiler alert: for readers like me who know very little going in, Fire and Fortitude is not the book for you.  After reading the "Prologue" I almost decided not to continue reading the book. Written as if a college professor is giving a lecture, it put me off the author and made me worry the book was going to be written in the same style: McManus seems to want to show the reader that he knows his military history and compares World War II Pacific army work with both historic and modern day situations.  He 'talks' down to the reader, trying to impress them (one assumes) with his knowledge and the introduction to the book and its topics felt almost secondary to me.  

If you can make it past the prologue and still want to read the book, the writing style at least gets better.  There are fewer comparisons to situations past and future to distract from the present of the 1940s.  Beginning at Pearl Harbor and going to Makin in 1943, McManus provides carefully researched minute details to make the reader feel as if they are experiencing every hardship alongside the soldiers.  For anyone wanting to find out about the intense miseries of jungle warfare, this is your book. From marches along ridges to the psychological terror of being in foxholes at night, Fire and Fortitude had you covered.  It makes you wonder how anyone experiencing it (on both the American and Japanese side) came out even halfway sane.  

What Fire and Fortitude didn't do was give you the bigger picture of the Pacific theater.  When you do get some of the overall plans and decision making from the generals, it quickly gets buried again in the tiny details.  I know I read about McArthur's experiences in the Philippines and why he was obsessed with returning there after evacuating, but after a few chapters I was so bogged down in minutiae that I couldn't remember his reasons for the rest of the book.  As much as I appreciated the miseries that the soldiers went through, I could have handled fewer of the repetitious details of those miseries on every island fight and more of the big picture on why they were fighting on the islands to come away with a better understanding of the war in the Pacific.

Overall, Fire and Fortitude is not a book for a reader new to the Pacific theater.  From ship tonnage to what each soldier carried to the specific divisions and regiments who went to different places, this is a book for historians who already know an enormous amount about this theater and are looking for even more details. For the beginner, like me, McManus spends so much time focusing on the details that the bigger picture is completely lost on you.  Because of this, I found the book an ordeal to get through, and not an author I would go back to for future reading.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review