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All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky by Joe Lansdale

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Don’t let the cover fool you on this one — while the designers would have you believe Joe Lansdale’s All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky is a contemporary rural novel, it’s not. It’s a historical novel, set during the depths of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. This is Lansdale’s first young adult novel, though he has published a host of titles for the adult audience, and that writing experience shines through.

Jack Catcher’s mom dies from an illness (most likely something respiratory-related) when the story starts, and within seconds, we’re also introduced to Jack’s father, who has taken his own life. His father didn’t want to live without his mother, and left a note proclaiming his love for Jack but his inability to carry on. Immediately after meeting Jack’s two dead parents, we’re also tossed into a raging dust storm. Lansdale gives us no breathing room, much like he gives none to Jack. Now all Jack wants to do is get out of town as quick as possible. He has no reason to be here in the middle of Oklahoma anymore.

When the storm passes, Jack’s confronted with a former classmate, Jane, and her little brother Tony, and he learns that they, too, have recently lost their parents. They also want to get out of dodge as fast as they can, but unlike Jack, they have a plan. One of their neighbors, an old man, has also just died (do you sense a theme here?) and Jane knows that he’s got a car. She also somehow had a hunch that Jack might know how to drive, and if they teamed up, they could borrow the car and finally be free. Jack, desperate, agrees to this, and the three are soon in a moving vehicle, leaving the dust-covered plains of Oklahoma behind them.

While Jack suggests going to California, where so many others have found their fortune and new lives, Jane has other plans. She suggests going southeast to Tyler, Texas, where she and Tony have relatives. Going there would ensure a place for them to stay and would get them far enough from where they are.

Except, as Jack and we as reader will learn, what Jane says might not always be the truth.

All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky is a book that is not only realistic in terms of depicting the harsh world of the Great Depression and the heavy, brutal air of the Dust Bowl, but it depicts realistically the relationships that develop among those who are desperate. What stood out to me immediately was the utter drive to live that Jack has — while Jane and Tony also portray this, it’s Jack’s voice the story is told through, and it’s with his story I felt this drive. The weakness Jack’s father showed in the face of losing his wife stands to be the thing that keeps Jack fighting forward; he doesn’t want to be weak and he doesn’t want to give up. He knows that through his own strength he can change his life and do so for the better. He knows it won’t be easy, but he’s willing to give it a chance.

I hesitate to call this a road trip book, but it is a story that’s set on the road. There’s movement as Jack, Jane, and Tony go from their roots in Oklahoma toward their ultimate goal in Tyler. But it’s not an easy road. Along the way, they run into some of the most notorious outlaws of the time, and they’re not willing to go easy on these kids. As if the death of parental units wasn’t enough, these characters will witness even more death. One murder will happen right in front of them, and it’s something with which they just deal. And that’s something I think is what makes this book so strong — the fact that life sucks but these characters soldier on. They certainly process this loss on their own terms, but they know in order to live their own lives, they have to keep moving forward. In addition to their run-ins with outlaws, Jack, Jane, and Tony met people who had less-than-good intentions for them; but, given that they’re strong willed and determined, those will become just parts of their adventure. Their travel experience is a series of adventures and trials that they need to pass.

Jane was, hands down, one of my favorite characters in a long time. She’s tricky. When we meet her in the novel, everything she tells Jack feels authentic. But the further the story moves and the more opportunities she has to interact with other characters and situations, both Jack and the reader begin seeing that Jane might be selling a lot of lies. And they’re not even white lies. They’re full out circus tales — a more-than-apt description that those who read the book will appreciate. She’s tough as nails and she goes after exactly what she wants. For a teen girl during this era, it’s not the norm. She’s bucking that though, and I applaud Lansdale for making her such a great and memorable character.

The pacing in this story is spot on, though the ending is a bit too tidy and a bit too easily-explained for some of the exploits that occur in the second half of the novel. Jane herself calls this a bit of an Odyssey that they take off on, and that is perhaps one of the best ways to describe the tale. Fans of that novel or those looking for a take on that storyline will appreciate this. For me, though, I wanted just a little bit more of that up front. It made the ending weaker because I wasn’t prepared for some of the side adventures that would occur. Jane comes out as a bigger escape artist than I suspected, and she is such in a manner that leaves her companions hanging. It went astray from the character I’d expected, though I suspect for Jack, it made sense. On the whole, though, the writing in this story is tight and tidy, and I think Lansdale, despite this being his first young adult novel, nails the teen voices.

Pass this book off to fans of historical fiction, especially stories set in rural America. I think those who love books like Kirby Larson’s Hattie Big Sky will appreciate this one, as will those who appreciate honest tales of survival situated in real-life events. Fans of great female characters will love Jane, even if they disagree with some of her methods of getting herself ahead of the game.

Review copy received from the publisher.

Wrapped by Jennifer Bradbury

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The year is 1815, and Agnes Wilkins, a young woman about to make her debut in high-class London society, is attending an unwrapping party. She’s not there to unwrap presents. Rather, she and the other attendees are there to witness – and participate in – the unwrapping of an Egyptian mummy, purchased by a moneyed aristocrat in Egypt and brought back to England to entertain guests.

Agnes is more than a little horrified at the prospect of viewing this, but her mother insists that she attend, since it’s hosted by the season’s most eligible bachelor, Lord Showalter, and she hopes Agnes will catch his eye. She assures her daughter that she need not actually participate in the unwrapping itself, but of course Agnes is forced to when Lord Showalter asks her to be among the first to do so.

Agnes complies, and she discovers an Egyptian artifact hidden within the wrappings. While no one is looking, she secrets the artifact in her dress – Lord Showalter had told her the artifacts found within the mummy could be kept, after all. But when Showalter tells everyone that they got the wrong mummy by mistake, that this one was actually supposed to go to the British Museum and therefore all artifacts needed to be returned, Agnes keeps the trinket.

This sets in a motion a dangerous adventure, since the artifact is not truly an artifact – it’s a false modern-day item made to look as if it were ancient Egyptian. It’s inscribed with French words that indicate it’s a message for a spy – a spy working for Napoleon. Agnes, working with a young employee of the British Museum named Caedmon (whom she quickly falls for, despite being courted by Showalter), deciphers the message and attempts to thwart the spy’s actions – actions that, if successful, could enable Napoleon to conquer all of Europe.

Wrapped is best likened to an adult historical romance/mystery, of which there are legions. In fact, it’s a great teen readalike for the Lady Julia Grey mystery series, which I’m working my way through right now. I had just finished Silent on the Moor before picking up Wrapped, and both coincidentally involve mummies and references to unwrappings as major plot points. I believe Lady Julia would have approved wholeheartedly of Agnes’ adventures.

Wrapped is also a good readalike for Y. S. Lee’s The Agency series (which I love and hope the next volume will be out soon). They’ve both got an intelligent teenage heroine, a well-realized historical setting (although Wrapped takes place mostly in rich London while The Agency delves into the seedier side), a fair amount of danger, and some exciting espionage. They also both require a similar level of suspension of disbelief.

The end of Wrapped indicates that there may be sequels forthcoming, which I would welcome. Agnes is a great character (she taught herself how to speak ten languages), with real faults that complement her almost unbelievable talents (she’s more than a little naïve, which gets her into trouble).

Unfortunately, Wrapped succumbs to the failing of many adult historical mystery/romances: the culprit is a foregone conclusion. It’s such a foregone conclusion that Bradbury doesn’t really bother presenting the reader with more than one possibility in the first place. While detrimental, this doesn’t kill the book. The focus is much more on adventure and the budding romance between Agnes and Caedmon, as well as some fascinating history. Because of this, it’s weaker as a mystery than I would have liked, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn

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Silent in the Grave, Deanna Raybourn’s debut effort, opens with the death of Lady Julia (née March) Grey’s husband, Edward. Edward had been sickly since a child, so his death was expected. What was not expected, however, was a private investigator named Nicholas Brisbane telling Lady Julia that her husband did not, in fact, die of natural causes. He was murdered.

Before his death, Edward had been receiving threatening notes using quotations from the Bible, including the one from which the novel gets its title: Psalm 31:17 – Let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave. Edward had hired Brisbane to determine the source of the notes and hopefully prevent the violence they implied. Julia is at first disbelieving, but when confronted with one of the notes, she chooses to keep Brisbane in her hire in order to determine if Edward was indeed murdered and if so, who the culprit is.

As Julia and Brisbane dive headlong into the mystery, they uncover all sorts of secrets – about Edward, about Julia’s household servants, and about Brisbane himself. This being a book from MIRA, an imprint of Harlequin, there’s a fair amount of romantic tension between the two leads, but this is a mystery first and foremost.

And it’s a great one. Julia is a terrific protagonist – a little snobby, but broad-minded enough to be relatable to a modern audience. She’s plucky, headstrong, smart, and funny, and Brisbane is wonderful as her enigmatic partner in sleuthing. Raybourn pours on the historical details, but it never becomes tedious. Instead, it makes the period come alive, elegance and decay alike. And the plots and subplots and sub-subplots are twisty and surprising and always interesting to read about.

There are some hitches. At times, characters’ actions or words will contradict. For example, Julia tells the reader how much she preferred the late Edward’s blonde good looks, and a few pages later remarks that her teenage fantasies always involved dark, brooding men – exactly the opposite of Edward. I understand that this helps develop Julia’s character and her budding romance with Brisbane, who is very much a dark, brooding man, but it seems clunky.

Additionally, characters often act in what seems to be an anachronistic way. The March family speaks rather freely about sexual affairs, homosexuality, prostitution, and other topics we modern readers tend to believe just weren’t discussed openly in prim and proper Victorian times. Julia’s elder sister Portia is, for all intents and purposes, a fully out lesbian and lives with her lover Jane, and the family doesn’t seem to suffer much socially for it. Of course these things did go on then as they do now, but the way the characters react to it strains credulity. Their sensibilities are a bit too modern to be believable.

These are minor quibbles in an otherwise fantastic story. Silent in the Grave has everything required for a nearly perfect romantic historical mystery: lots of witty banter, a solid (and wonderfully salacious) central mystery, a large and colorful cast of characters, plenty of period detail, and several subplots to keep you interested in case you solve the main mystery before the sleuth does. Plus, Raybourn resolves mostly everything but leaves one small thread purposefully dangling so you’ll be eager to pick up the sequel once you’ve finished. Which I promptly did.

Borrowed from my local library.

The Revenant by Sonia Gensler

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The Revenant by Sonia Gensler is a hybrid book: part mystery, part ghost story, part historical fiction, part coming of age.  Seventeen year old Willie Hammond is attending a school she loves in the late 19th century when her mother writes her a letter, telling her she must take a break from school and return home to help on the farm.  Willie doesn’t feel like she belongs at the farm, so she steals her classmate Angeline McClure’s teaching certificate and runs away to accept a position as a teacher at a Cherokee female seminary in Indian Territory.

Once at the seminary, Willie finds it not at all what she expected.  Many of the Cherokee girls come from very wealthy families, and the school is far from rustic.  She struggles to get her bearings as a teacher and understand the complex socioeconomic situation at the school, where lighter-skinned and wealthier girls look down upon the full-blooded and more traditional girls.  What’s more, one of the students drowned in the river last year and she supposedly haunts her old room – the room where Willie now sleeps.  Willie becomes caught up in solving the mystery of the student who drowned and also becomes romantically involved with a student from the boys’ seminary.  She must juggle all this while keeping her true identity a secret.
I had two main problems with The Revenant, and the biggest one lies with the protagonist, Willie.  Willie’s reason for fleeing her home and impersonating Angeline McClure is an incredibly selfish one, although her feelings that led up to her actions are understandable.  To sum up: Willie’s father has died, and her mother has remarried, given birth to twin boys, and is pregnant with another child. She needs Willie’s assistance at home with the new baby, which means Willie’s schooling will be delayed awhile, but Willie doesn’t want to return home to a life of drudgery with a stepfather she loathes and a mother she resents for remarrying so quickly.  Therefore, Willie runs away from school to the Cherokee seminary and pretends to be a teacher.
I can understand the resentment toward her mother and stepfather, both for remarrying and for forcing Willie to leave school, even temporarily.  What’s harder to understand is Willie’s lack of an inner struggle.  It’s apparent that she’s not interested in getting to know her two little brothers or her new sibling on the way, and she hasn’t given a thought to how difficult it is for her mother to raise three children and run a farm without additional help.  She also doesn’t consider how her mother would worry about her.
One thing that can be said for Willie is that she routinely sends money back home, reassuring her mother that she is well.  This aspect makes me think Gensler wanted to portray some sort of guilt or inner struggle, but it’s virtually absent nonetheless, something particularly telling in a first-person story.
Part of the reason we read stories is to see how characters change and grow.  While some protagonists may not start out completely likable, they usually develop over the course of the story, making some kind of transformation.  Willie certainly does this, but it’s all taken care of in the last fifty pages, when she’s already returned home.  There’s almost no character development during her time at the seminary and she remains solidly unlikable until nearly the end.  
What’s more, Willie arrives at the seminary very much a girl, constantly intimidated by the senior female students and falling for the good-looking male students, and she leaves the same way, without learning how to really lead a class, assert her authority, or even grade papers.  The Revenant would have been a much stronger book if Gensler had begun Willie’s transformation during her time at the seminary, showing how the events that took place there shaped her character.  Instead, it is events that happen at home that cause her growth, making the story feel oddly divided.
The more minor problem has to do with the romance.  It might just be my old fuddy-duddy sensibilities at work, but the relationship between Willie and the male student, Eli Sevenstar, made me uncomfortable.  Granted, he is not in any of her classes and she’s not even technically a teacher, but the position of authority is still there.  Perhaps it unnerved me because situations like this have been in our modern news so much lately.  Beyond that, though, is the fact that Willie and Eli fall for each other before they even converse much.  Their romance is built on Eli’s good looks and Willie’s ability to blush.  
Neither of these faults make the book one not worth reading.  Gensler, a debut writer, has made a good start with The Revenant.  Her writing is fluid and she kept me interested.  I’ve always enjoyed a good mystery and Gensler delivered a fairly juicy one, full of secret trysts and red herrings.  The historical details, while not ubiquitous, were fascinating, and I appreciated learning about a time and place I knew almost nothing about.  I also feel she treated the school and its denizens’ culture with the sensitivity required.  I’d recommend The Revenant to fans of light mysteries, historical fiction, or not-so-scary ghost stories.  There’s a lot to enjoy here.

Review copy provided by publisher. The Revenant is on shelves now.

Prisoners in the Palace by Michaela MacColl

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I dislike this cover rather intensely.
Michaela MacColl’s debut novel, Prisoners in the Palace, is the best kind of historical fiction: it spins an interesting (even thrilling) story out of real-life events while still remaining true to those events.  In so doing, it opens the reader’s eyes to a part of history they might otherwise have overlooked.
Prisoners in the Palace sounds like it could be a story spun straight out of fiction.  After her parents die in an accident, sixteen year old Elizabeth (Liza) must find a way to pay off her father’s debt.  Therefore, instead of making her debut in society as planned, she takes a position as lady’s maid to the teenaged princess.  The princess has been sheltered her whole life, living under the thumb of her mother and her unscrupulous advisor Sir John, who plots to steal the throne, rob the royal coffers, and seduce various and sundry maids.  Liza is drawn into this intrigue and must help the princess secure her future position as queen while avoiding the detection of the villainous Sir John, who may have murderous tendencies.
That princess is Victoria, who would go on to become the longest-ruling monarch in England’s history, and much of the events described by MacColl in the book actually happened, as detailed in her lengthy but fascinating Author’s Note at the end. 
There’s more to Prisoners in the Palace than interesting history, though – it has an immensely likable protagonist and mixes in elements of a spy novel, an adventure novel, and a tiny bit of a romance novel too.  
Much of what makes Liza so likable is that she is a very proactive character.  Rather than allow things to just happen to her, she takes the initiative.  She seizes the opportunity to be Victoria’s lady’s maid when she originally had a much different position in mind, and she concocts a plan to win Victoria over (and therefore perhaps re-gain some social status as thanks) by offering to spy for her.  While she has some minor loyalties to other characters, and develops real friendships with some, it’s clear she isn’t swayed by them and can look out for herself.  I love that in a protagonist.
Even though the ending of the story is never really in doubt, the journey there is immensely enjoyable.  Reading Prisoners in the Palace is the same kind of fun as reading  Heist Society and Clarity.  All three books have feisty, capable female leads, a good bit of action and adventure, and some nice surprises.  They’ve all got a similar lightweight tone, too, where not a whole lot seems at stake even though the characters are in some fairly serious situations.  
Prisoners in the Palace is probably best for readers already interested in historical fiction, since the history is so important to the story, but even those just looking for a fun spy/adventure tale would find a lot to like here.  It doesn’t hurt that it involves a princess, a perennially popular component of almost any story for teenage girls (and that definitely includes me).  
Sidenote: When I was a little girl I wanted to be a princess (not surprising) because I figured they would always have beautiful dresses.  The descriptions of the dresses in this book are pretty great.  I no longer want to be a princess, but I do still like reading about them.