Lion's Blood

by Steven Barnes

This was a bookgroup book. The premise of this book is an alternate world in which Africa and Islam are dominant over Europe and Christianity. One criticism we all had was that there was very little to explain just what happened to bring this shift about -- one thought a member had was he could have moved the Plague up a thousand years and made it more devastating, but he doesn't explain much beyond ancient times. The story takes place in the mid-19th century, yet there is little of the technology which existed at that time.

In this alternate world, North America has been settled by Africans who enslave captured Europeans. We follow the stories of Kai, the young African master, Aidan, the Irish slave captured from his home and sent overseas, and Sophia, a beautiful young courtesan. While many of the side characters are drawn out, all of the women other than Sophia are rather flat characters.

My bookgroup also noted that this is really a "guy's book," with lots of drawn out battle scenes and one-dimensional sex scenes. We've had a pattern of only reading fiction by women, so this may affect our response to this. It's not great literature, but it was an enjoyable read, and it did offer some new things to think about.

The Other Woman

by Jane Green.

Chick lit galore. This time, the other woman is the overbearing mother-in-law. The ending is a little to trite and pat, but otherwise an enjoyable genre book. She's not my favorite chick lit author, though.

Siren Queen

By Fiona Buckley.

Latest in the Elizabethan mystery series. Ursula Stannard is (we discover a few books in) the illegitimate half-sister of Queen Elizabeth I. She acts as a spy finding out who is leading the latest dastardly plot against the throne. The series holds up still. Recommend starting with the first in the series.

God's Politics

I have very mixed feelings about this book. As a tactical matter I see the need for Democrats to appeal to the religious, but essentially I am what he calls "secular fundamentalist" in that I think the government should be purely secular, and I'd prefer not to hear about politicians' spiritual lives. They shouldn't matter, but, unfortunately from my perspective, they do.

I finished the book feeling, "OK, let's try to find some common ground" with regard to abortion. After all, even Harry Reid proposed a plan to provide real sex ed and family planning services to women in this country. I can support the position that reducing the abortion rate is a good thing and the best way to do this is education and access to birth control. But, yesterday, just when I had finished the book, I got an email from my friend telling me that my Congressman, an anti-abortion Democrat, voted against restoring the funds to the UN for HIV/AIDS prevention and birth control. I can't go along with that. That's capitulation, not compromise. I'm pissed, really and truly pissed.

I have felt all along that I would vote for Casey in '06 as much as I dislike how the state party essentially cleared the field for him so there will be no real primary. (Yeah, there's a progressive from Philly that I've only heard about on Kos. He's not going to win.) It's going to be very hard for me to vote for Casey, as much as I despise Santorum, and I am hearing from plenty of women who may just stay home because they don't feel Casey is any better when it comes to women's rights. Yeah, he's polling great now, but this could be a real disaster. Votes like Doyle's make it harder to try to convince people to just hold their noses and pull the lever.

My Life So Far

Jane Fonda

I really enjoyed this. She's had such an interesting life, yet she also has adapted herself to the men in her life for most of her life. If someone so famous, (as an ardent feminist, no less )and rich could still feel she needed to define herself by the man in her life, what does that say about society? Was Fonda just a product of her time, or is there something more to the story?

It's not a typical "hollywood" bio -- I would have found the story interesting without all the hollywood stuff. In fact, there really isn't much dishing of the stars. She talks a lot about her relationship to her father, but it's certainly the story of many Americans of their eras who aren't famous. Of any era, really.

Brava, Jane!

I, Elizabeth

by Rosalind Mills

I've gotten behind in my journalling, and I read this a few weeks ago so my memories may not be the best. While I enjoyed it, and enjoy this type of literature for the most part, I didn't like it as much as the Phillipa Gregory books or the Jean Plaidy ones.

The Mermaid Chair

by Sue Monk Kidd

Sophomore effort. Not as good as Secret Life of Bees, but enjoyable nonetheless. This time the heroine is a middle aged woman whose only child has just left the nest. She's taking time to figure out who she is now while taking care of her mother, a religious fanatic who lives alone on an island off the SC coast who has inexplicably cut off her finger. It turns out that crazy mom feels guilt for the (extremely farfetched) way in which the father died years before. The heronine manages to fall in love at first sight with a monk who has not yet taken his final vows.

There is a real Mermaid Chair in a monestary in England.

Bread Alone by Judith Ryan Hendricks

Somewhat typical "women's book." Woman with no marketable skills gets left by controlling cheating husband. She allows him to walk all over her in the divorce, kicking her out of her home and generally treating her like dirt. Moves to Seattle and slowly gets her life together by becoming a baker. Good bread recipes. [HINT: Use half the yeast and let bread rise twice as long.]

Enjoyable, but not great. I may read the sequel.

Ya-Yas in Bloom by Rebecca Wells

As much as I loved Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, and even Little Altars Everywhere, I think I'm Ya-Ya'd out. I finished this a week ago and don' t remember anything distinctive about this one that would make it stand out from the other two. It's time for Wells to either rethink the characters -- since time stops in 1994, what's happened in the past 10 years? How do the Ya Ya's face death? -- or to come up with something new.

The Secret Life of Bees

By Sue Monk Kidd

This book is about a young girl in the south in 1964, and on one level, it has to take place at that place and at that time. Yet the story is universal -- about what it means to be motherless, who mothers are in our lives, whether the women who gave birth to us or the women who act as mothers to us, or the divine feminine, who is, in this novel, embodied in the Black Madonna . Or in the form of the queen bee, whose only function is to serve as eternal mother to the hive, living in constant darkness, laying eggs all her days. Yet, without her, the hive soon languishes and dies.

As August, the queen bee of the novel, says to Lily, "Our Lady is not some magical being out there somewhere like a fairy godmother. She's not the statue in the parlor. She's something inside you . . . You have to find a mother inside yourself. We all do. Even if we already have a mther, we still have to find this part of ourselves inside."

It's a coming of age novel, an American novel, a spiritual novel. Particularly for the motherless, a moving experience. Well written. I'm looking forward to her latest novel.

Prep by Curtis Stittenfeld

This is not a book for grown ups.
I was disappointed by this book. From the great reviews, I was expecting something better. When I finished it, the first thought I had was "My god, was I that self-absorbed back in high school?" The sad truth is, I was. There isn't anything redeeming enough about this book to get past the adolescent navel gazing of the main character.

I think Sittenfeld has great potential as a writer, though. I hope her next book is for grown-ups.

The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig

Fun, fun, fun

A wild romp. Combines the best of chick-lit, bodice-ripper romance and "real" historical fiction. The author is a history PhD candidate at Harvard and clearly has done her homework.

Now I must read the original "Scarlet Pimpernel."