Tag Archives: historical fiction

The Whitechapel Demon

Book Review of The Whitechapel Demon (The Adventures Of The Royal Occultist #1), Joshua Reynolds

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The Whitechapel DemonI picked up a copy of Josh Reynolds‘ The Whitechapel Demon from Amazon when it was free.

Description from Goodreads:
Formed during the reign of Elizabeth I, the post of the Royal Occultist was created to safeguard the British Empire against threats occult, otherworldly, infernal and divine. 

It is now 1920, and the title and offices have fallen to Charles St. Cyprian. Accompanied by his apprentice Ebe Gallowglass, they defend the battered empire from the forces of darkness.

In the wake of a séance gone wrong, a monstrous killer is summoned from the depths of nightmare by a deadly murder-cult. The entity hunts its prey with inhuman tenacity even as its worshippers stop at nothing to bring the entity into its full power… It’s up to St. Cyprian and Gallowglass to stop the bloodthirsty horror before another notch is added to its gory tally, but will they become the next victims of the horror guised as London’s most famous killer?

Review:
I quite enjoyed that, but since it’s a holiday here you get an abbreviated review.

Things I liked:

  • Interesting characters
  • smooth, humorous dialogue
  • two male/female partnerships that didn’t involve romance (that’s possible you know)
  • incidental inclusion of LGBT individuals (ok, a gay man, but it’s a start)

Things I didn’t like:

  • the villains were too slapstick
  • the era-speak and witticisms in the face of danger went over the top
  • the evil entity was defeated too easily
  • too many easy, throw-away deaths
  • needed a tad more editing
Serena

Book Review of Serena, by Ron Rash

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SerenaI’m kind of excited to have joined a book club, as in a real life, in person, book club. woo-hoo. Serena, by Ron Rash, was the book they chose this month. I picked a copy up from the library.

Description from Goodreads:
The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton travel from Boston to the North Carolina mountains where they plan to create a timber empire. Although George has already lived in the camp long enough to father an illegitimate child, Serena is new to the mountains—but she soon shows herself to be the equal of any man, overseeing crews, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving her husband’s life in the wilderness. Together this lord and lady of the woodlands ruthlessly kill or vanquish all who fall out of favor. Yet when Serena learns that she will never bear a child, she sets out to murder the son George fathered without her. Mother and child begin a struggle for their lives, and when Serena suspects George is protecting his illegitimate family, the Pembertons’ intense, passionate marriage starts to unravel as the story moves toward its shocking reckoning.

Review:
Can I just say how happy I am to be done with this book? I think it took me forever and a day to read it. It’s not that it’s a particularly bad book, but it was not to my tastes and frankly I was bored for most of it. The events alluded to in the synopsis don’t really happen until the last quarter of the book and the child and his mother play a very small role in it. The rest is largely the day-to-day happenings of the logging camp.

I enjoyed the loggers’ uneducated observations about their bosses, but was less enamored with those bosses themselves. They were such intensely dislikable people (as they were meant to be). He was simply a snobbish product of his time. She, however, was a homicidal psychopath.

All in all, probably a fine read for someone more inclined to enjoy the genre. I read it because my book club chose it this month. It’s unlikely I would have picked it up otherwise.

Book Review: In the Blood, by Scott Skipper

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in the bloodDescription from Goodreads:

George Washington Skipper was a man with secrets. He kept multiple wives in two states, spawned at least sixteen children, adopted three, spent four years in the Confederate Army, was shot twice and lived to eighty-five. Then there was one more thing and a hundred years later the family is still scandalized over it.

This fictionalized account of my ancestor’s remarkable life will probably get me struck from the Thanksgiving guest list, but those who aren’t related will be amazed and amused. Then again, are you sure we’re not related? Washington was born when John Quincy Adams was president and he died the week before the Titanic sank. During that long life he did some outrageous things. This account follows his early days in the Carolina low country, running from county to county avoiding the whipping post, through his Civil War battles, the misery of Reconstruction and his personal tragedies. In the Blood is based on fifteen years of genealogical research and punctuated with a little good clean fun.

Review:

When settling down to read a novel based on someone else’s genealogical history, there is always a niggling fear that it will be something like sitting through your neighbor’s vacation slide show, interesting to them but interminable to you. In the Blood is nothing like this. Being based on genealogical research, there is a certain amount of so-and-so beget so-and-so, who, despite being married to so-and-so beget so-and-so, but it is also a relatively fast-paced read based on a truly interesting character who also happens to find himself in gripping circumstances.

George Washington Skipper is amorous, to say the least, swept up in the Confederate spirit of the American Civil War, enlightened about the true doldrums of that (and probably every) war, discouraged by the perceived injustices of Reconstruction, and eventually the father of dozens of children by a variety of women, very few of whom he ever supported in any fashion. Ultimately, he is seen to be an even-minded good man, but he systematically wrongs woman after woman throughout the book. However, given the time in which he lived, it is, unfortunately, true that his actions may not have been as unusual as it seems to the modern reader.

For me, there was also a special thrill. As a member of ‘the 10th’ in the Confederate Army, Washington and his cohorts marched back and forth through middle Tennessee. This is home turf for me and it was really interesting to hear about the skirmishes that happened in towns I’ve lived in and around.

For those who have an interest in the Civil War and the life of the average man (ie, not the famous names of the times) In the Blood is a definite recommended read. I think there is a tendency to idealize the past, and this book provides a refreshingly realistic look at a difficult period in American History. Check it out.