Sex and Vanity

Sex and Vanity- Kevin Kwan

DoubleDay/Random House

Release Day: June 30, 2020

Rating:

📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: On her very first morning on the jewel-like island of Capri, Lucie Churchill sets eyes on George Zao and she instantly can't stand him. She can't stand it when he gallantly offers to trade hotel rooms with her so that she can have a view of the Tyrrhenian Sea, she can't stand that he knows more about Casa Malaparte than she does, and she really can't stand it when he kisses her in the darkness of the ancient ruins of a Roman villa and they are caught by her snobbish, disapproving cousin Charlotte. "Your mother is Chinese so it's no surprise you'd be attracted to someone like him," Charlotte teases. The daughter of an American-born Chinese mother and a blue-blooded New York father, Lucie has always sublimated the Asian side of herself in favor of the white side, and she adamantly denies having feelings for George. But several years later, when George unexpectedly appears in East Hampton, where Lucie is weekending with her new fiancé, Lucie finds herself drawn to George again. Soon, Lucie is spinning a web of deceit that involves her family, her fiancé, the co-op board of her Fifth Avenue apartment building, and ultimately herself as she tries mightily to deny George entry into her world--and her heart. Moving between summer playgrounds of privilege, peppered with decadent food and extravagant fashion, Sex and Vanity is a truly modern love story, a daring homage to A Room with a View, and a brilliantly funny comedy of manners set between two cultures.

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From the creator of Crazy Rich Asians comes a new world of over-the-top money, family, and romance in New York.  When George and Lucie meet at a friend's wedding they are teens who barely speak to each other but are still drawn together.  One night, one indiscretion, and one drone send them apart.  Years later they are back in each other's orbit and Lucie has to decide if she's going to stay on the path she's planned for herself since she was 8 years old, or take a risk and go for what her heart really wants.

Sex and Vanity is a pretty good description of most of the people in this book- emphasis on the vanity.  It's Crazy Rich Asians up a notch.  The only exceptions seem to be our heroes, Lucy and George and their mothers- all other friends and family are shameless name droppers and have black belts in one-upmanship.  Lucy has spent her life trying to fit into this world, while believing that she isn't good enough for it because she's half-Asian and she doesn't look like her father's Plymouth Rock WASP family.  Every time she manages to enjoy a moment as herself, something happens to shock her or shame her back into her protective little shell.  She thinks she has to be what everyone else wants her to be, but George sees her for who she actually is, or could be.  

While I enjoyed the book, with its fast paced writing style and breezy over-the-top world, I wish we had gotten to see George more.  The reader actually gets very little "George" time, which makes it hard to believe in love between George and Lucie.  He almost never talks, does nice things without fanfare but just to help people (which is great, no complaints there- especially compared to Cecil!) but I hard a hard time following Lucie through her feelings for him.  At first she doesn't like him, on no basis at all.  Then she does, on no basis at all.  Magnetic pull might be a good start to a relationship, but it never got beyond that for me.  He seemed like a Mr. Darcy type who never got turned into a character to know, but just an idea.

Light summer fun to help make people smile, Sex and Vanity will be enjoyed by everyone who enjoyed the world of Crazy Rich Asians.

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

House of Ghosts

A House of Ghosts- W.C. Ryan 
Simon & Schuster
Release Date: October 1, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Winter 1917. As the First World War enters its most brutal phase, back home in England, everyone is seeking answers to the darkness that has seeped into their lives. At Blackwater Abbey, on an island off the Devon coast, armaments manufacturer Lord Highmount has arranged a spiritualist gathering to contact his two sons, both of whom died at the front.

Among the guests, two have been secretly dispatched from the intelligence service: Kate Cartwright, a friend of the family who lost her beloved brother at the Somme and who, in the realm of the spiritual, has her own special gift; and the mysterious Captain Donovan, recently returned from Europe. Top secret plans for weapons developed by Lord Highmount’s company have turned up in Berlin, and there is reason to believe enemy spies will be in attendance. As the guests arrive, it becomes clear that each has something they would rather keep hidden. Then, when a storm descends, they find themselves trapped on the island. Soon one of their number will die. For Blackwater Abbey is haunted in more ways than one . . . .

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During the darkest days of World War I no one is unaffected.  A house party at the island home of armaments manufacturer Lord Highmount is arranged to attempt to contact the spirits of those they've lost to the war.  But the party has another purpose- copies of Highmount's weapons designs have appeared in Berlin and both Highmount and the government want to flush out the spy. Highmount family friend Kate Cartwright and government agent Captain Donovan are sent in to identify the traitor. Soon, in a house with a reputation for being haunted, the living have as much to fear from each other as from any ghost.  

A House of Ghosts is a wonderful mystery novel, well-written and full of twists and turns, red herrings, and surprises.  It's a book that instantly calls up comparisons with Agatha Christie mysteries: an isolated Devon island home, a trapped house party, everyone at the party has secrets and hidden agendas, and there may or may not be a murderer among the guests.  W.C. Ryan makes A House of Ghosts unique with strong leading characters and a touch of the supernatural.

Kate and Donovan surprise themselves (but not the reader!) by becoming excellent partners, each with their own special skills. Kate's been stuck in Room 40 (the World War I precursor to the more famous Bletchley Park of World War II) breaking codes on weather reports, so when the mysterious C asks her to help with this case, she's happy to do so- even though it involves a haunted house with bad memories for her and pretending that her newly ex-fiancé is still her current fiancé.  She's an excellent blend of innocent and eager, with no naïveté about her, an intelligent woman who wants to do her part for the war effort and discover how her brother died.  

 Donovan is the hardbitten, mysterious agent who thinks he's jaded beyond saving, and suffers from PTSD from years at the front.  He's surprised to discover how much he enjoys working with Kate, and soon comes to think of her in far more than professional terms.  I was very happy that, even as Donovan and Kate's personal relationship develops, Donovan never treats Kate as less than his partner.  He may worry over the danger she's in, but he doesn't deny her the right to her part of the action and trusts that she can handle herself.

The supernatural angle was, I thought, particularly well-done here.  House of Ghosts never becomes a horror novel.  The book balances the rational skepticism of people like Donovan with Kate and her mother- who can see ghosts and even, occasionally, more with the help of a family artifact.  Seances  would have been common during the war and the two supposed psychics on the island are treated like  gifted people trying to help the grieving parents of soldiers.  Whether they are in fact genuinely trying to help or have a scam in mind is only one of the tangles facing Donovan and Kate. But the supernatural angle is treated so matter-of-factly that people who don't want ghosts with their mysteries should still enjoy House of Ghosts without too much skepticism.  And those of us who like a bit of supernatural to add to the drama are well rewarded. 

The Brothers York

The Brothers York: A Royal Tragedy- Thomas Penn
Simon & Schuster
Release Date: June 16, 2020

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: In 15th-century England, two royal families, the House of York and the House of Lancaster, fought a bitter, decades-long civil war for the English throne. As their symbols were a red rose for Lancaster and a white rose for York, the conflict became known as the Wars of the Roses.

During this time, the house of York came to dominate England. At its heart were three charismatic brothers—King Edward IV, and his two younger siblings George and Richard—who became the figureheads of a spectacular ruling dynasty. Together, they looked invincible.

But with Edward’s ascendancy the brothers began to turn on one another, unleashing a catastrophic chain of rebellion, vendetta, fratricide, usurpation, and regicide. The brutal end came at Bosworth Field in 1485, with the death of the youngest, then Richard III, at the hands of a new usurper, Henry Tudor, later Henry VII, progenitor of the Tudor line of monarchs.

Fascinating, dramatic, and filled with vivid historical detail, The Brothers York is a brilliant account of a conflict that fractured England for a generation. Riven by internal rivalries, jealousy, and infighting, the three York brothers failed to sustain their power and instead self-destructed. It is a rich and bloody tale as gripping as any historical fiction.

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For history lovers looking to read a definitive book on an English monarch or their era (such as Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him or Good Queen Anne), in my opinion the book to read for King Edward IV's reign is The Brothers York: A Royal Tragedy by Thomas Penn.  Encompassing not only Edward IV's life and times, The Brothers York weaves together the stories of the battles between the Lancasters and the Yorks, Nevilles, Percys, Woodvilles, Rivers, and more.  More importantly, it also puts into context the lives of Edward's brothers George, the Duke of Clarence, and Richard, who would become King Richard III.  

What the average person knows of this family is probably little to nothing, and then their 'knowledge' is based on Shakespeare's evil King Richard destroying his family.  In Penn's Brothers York we meet the ambitious Edward and his advisor Warwick "the Kingmaker", the fascinating politics behind how Edward rewarded his favorites, and his unusual (and questionable) ways of constantly increasing the royal coffers.  Edward focused on the image of the royal family as a united front, heads above everyone else, and Penn argues that if Edward and his brothers had been able to remain united, there is probably little they couldn't have done.  But politics and personalities interfere and jealousy and the lures of ever increasing power were too much to keep the brothers united.  But the fractures didn't occur the way you think they did.

This is not your Shakespearean family, but a well-researched, well-written, neutral, and detailed account of Edward IV's reign, the multiple betrayals by the spoiled Clarence, and the warrior brother Richard, who was loyal to his elder brother until Edward's death- but not beyond.  The Brothers York is a fascinating history of brothers seeking to end conclusively the "Wars of the Roses", written in a casual, story-telling style that, combined with the drama and larger than life personalities involved, makes the pages fly by. An absolute must read for history lovers!       

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

The Marriage Game

The Marriage Game- Sara Desai
Berkley/Penguin Group
Release Date: June 9, 2020

Rating:
📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: After her life falls apart, recruitment consultant Layla Patel returns home to her family in San Francisco. But in the eyes of her father, who runs a Michelin starred restaurant, she can do no wrong. He would do anything to see her smile again. With the best intentions in mind, he offers her the office upstairs to start her new business and creates a profile on an online dating site to find her a man. She doesn’t know he’s arranged a series of blind dates until the first one comes knocking on her door…

As CEO of a corporate downsizing company Sam Mehta is more used to conflict than calm. In search of a quiet new office, he finds the perfect space above a cozy Indian restaurant that smells like home. But when communication goes awry, he's forced to share his space with the owner's beautiful yet infuriating daughter Layla, her crazy family, and a parade of hopeful suitors, all of whom threaten to disrupt his carefully ordered life.

As they face off in close quarters, the sarcasm and sparks fly. But when the battle for the office becomes a battle of the heart, Sam and Layla have to decide if this is love or just a game.

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Sam Mehta is a calm and control-oriented person.  He doesn't do noise, family, fun, or distractions.  Blaming himself for his sister's bad marriage and current pain, he has one focus: make the man who hurt her face justice.  But his plans- and his new office- get derailed when his landlord gives his office to someone else and has a heart attack before telling Sam about the change.  Layla is all energy, colors, and chaos as she tries to pull her life together and start her own business, but now she finds herself sharing an office with an uptight jerk who won't leave.  When Layla finds out her father set up blind dates for her, Sam and Layla make a deal: she'll go on the dates and if she gets married to one of the men, Sam can have the office.  No marriage means Sam's out.  Sam might start out as trying to save Layla the way he couldn't save his sister, but somewhere along the way his feelings to Layla become anything but  brotherly.

The Marriage Game is a definite opposites attract book.  Layla is all about emotions and empathy, helping her family and trying to move forward after bad things happen. She claims to not know who she really is and what she really wants, but instinctively she goes for exactly what is right for her- and only starts messing up when she thinks about it.  Sam is all about control, safety, and security. He thinks he knows what he should do and believes that he doesn't deserve happiness.  Both have suffered and I love how Sara Desai shows us the different ways people react to the troubles life brings us.  People can (and as this book shows us, do) become confusing contradictions of thoughts, feelings, and actions when it comes to trying to fix things that are broken and to prevent future pain.  

Desai celebrates Indian culture through food and family, and immerses the reader in a beautiful world of scents, sounds, and colors that explode from the page.  Sam and Layla may be in an office upstairs, but the reader can smell the scents of traditional Indian food cooking in Layla's family restaurant downstairs.  Busybody aunties drive everyone crazy with their matchmaking ways and odd attempts at American-Indian fusion food.  Bad dates mean a variety of humorous situations that inadvertently bring Layla and Sam closer together.  I wish we'd gotten the chance to get to know more of the people in Sam's life, like his sister Nisha, but I recognize that this was part of the point: Sam had closed himself off from his family and we only got to see them through Sam's pinhole vision. It works very well and makes you feel even sorrier for Sam- if we want to get to know Nisha better, think what her own brother is missing out on!

The Marriage Game is about discovering what really matters to you.  Who are you when everything falls apart?  What do you want moving forward? What are you willing to fight for?  Sam is about to discover that sometimes the worst thing that can happen to you is also the best thing that can happen to you.   

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