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Where the Heart Leads: From the Casebook of Barnaby Adair (Cynster Novels)

Stephanie Laurens

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens knows the world of Regency London . . . especially the exclusive enclave of luxury in which the aristocracy lived in wealth and comfort. But outside that glittering circle lay another world . . . and Laurens pulls back the curtain that has hidden it from us—until now.

Penelope Ashford, Portia Cynster's younger sister, has grown up with every advantage—wealth, position, and beauty. Yet Penelope is anything but a pretty face in a satin gown—forceful, willful, and blunt to a fault, she has for years devoted her considerable energy and intelligence to caring for the forgotten orphans of London's sooty and seamier streets.

But now her charges are mysteriously disappearing. Desperate, Penelope turns to the one man she knows who might help her—Barnaby Adair.

Handsome scion of a noble house, Adair has made a name for himself in certain circles where his powers of observation and deduction have seen him solve several serious and unsavory crimes within the ton. His pedigree, relentless intelligence, and discretion make him a deadly avenger in an elegant guise. Despite his skills—or perhaps because of them—he makes Penelope distinctly uncomfortable, but the stakes are too grave. Throwing caution to the wind, defying every rule for unmarried ladies, she appears on his doorstep late one night determined to recruit his talents.

Barnaby is intrigued—both by her problem and her. Her bold beauty and undeniable brains make a striking contrast to the usual insipid ton misses. And as he's in dire need of an excuse to avoid said insipid misses, he accepts her challenge, never dreaming she and it will consume his every waking hour.

Enlisting the aid of Inspector Basil Stokes of the fledgling Scotland Yard, they infiltrate the streets of London's notorious East End. But as they unravel the mystery of the missing orphans, they uncover a trail leading to the upper echelons of society and a ruthless and clever criminal adept at pulling strings who, becoming aware of them and their efforts, is only too ready to destroy all they hold dear, including their newfound understanding of the intrigues of the human heart.

Dubliners

James Joyce

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 106 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Overrated but good 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I've long proclaimed that Dubliners is Joyce's greatest literary achievement. I'd read the book first in the mid-80s, then the early 90s, and just a while back. While I stand by my initial assessment that it's Joyce's best work, with age, and my own forays into fiction, I see that it is not as good as I once thought, although it still has moments of greatness.
The book is fifteen short stories that were mostly written in the years 1904-1905, and were dubbed by Joyce as being `epiphanies'- moments of sudden insight. The key to that term, however, is that the epiphanies are meant to occur within the reader, not to Joyce's characters....It is legend that Dubliners originally consisted of twelve tales, and that Joyce later added Two Gallants, A Little Cloud, and The Dead, after the original dozen were done by 1905. I don't think that sort of knowledge really matters since the three tales are rather uneven in relationship to each other, so give no idea of Joyce's growth nor stagnation, and certainly not a hint of his later fracturing of narrative, which was already being hailed as Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man was already being serialized in The Egoist magazine when the book finally hint print, almost a decade later in 1914. Thus, his greatest work was unfairly overlooked by the critics of the day.
They were generally dismissed as trifles, save for The Dead, although, when the critical tide turned, it turned far too much in the other direction, with virtually every one of the stories being hailed as a masterpiece. They're not, although by contemporary standards the tales are indeed innovative and excellent. The stories vary greatly in approach, but their tone is too similar, that is- consistently dour, which augured the summation of Joyce as the favorite writer that nobody reads.
Also, there is a tendency, in the lesser stories, for Joyce to get stuck in minutiae of the day that means little now, as well as superfluous dialogue designed to add color, yet only adds fat. Another problem is that in order to show the inertia and decline of Irish culture into paralysis, around the turn of the Twentieth Century, Joyce's stories are essentially without much real conflict- thus their lean into `epiphany'. It also makes tales like Ivy Day in the Committee Room, laden with political references as arcane as a John Dryden poem, and little real character development, simply not good. In attempting a slice of Dublin life of the day Joyce sometimes falls prey to the fallacy that to be `real' he has to show characters doing dull things, or simply describe things too matter-of-factly, rather than letting the epiphanies speak for themselves, by brushing away the `ordinary' excess. Dramatically, the stories are rather predictable- what separates them from lesser writers' tales is how the expected is unleashed and described.
In short, while the argument that Joyce was a great writer, but not great novelist, sticks, the idea that he was without anything to say is demonstrably false. It's just that he did not have a whole lot to say, nor did he have anything particularly new to say. But, he said it, at his best, better than most. It is the fact that Joyce attempts more than contemporary short fictionists, and that this collection is not a mere collection, but a narrative movement, or symphony, with a purpose, that makes the book glow all the more brightly in contrast to the dreck that populates today's fiction. What most astonishes me, though, as I grow and age, is how little it takes for a person's reputation as an artist, to be founded on. James Joyce was a great writer, but tales like After The Race, Clay, Ivy Day in the Committee Room, A Mother, and Grace- fully a third of the book, are simply not good stories, for reasons mentioned earlier. Not acknowledging that does no good, and only casts the reader and critic in the role of the sciolist professor I encountered.
It is only by acknowledging failures that the structures that go under a great work of art- its scaffolding- can be considered and applied by others. To not do so is to keep up the curtain that denies that greatness is achievable now, the same sort of lie that Gabriel Conroy's world finally lost in the snow.

Editorial Review:

From the author of PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN, FINNEGAN'S WAKE and ULYSSES, a modern classic which highlights the incidents in the lives of ordinary men and women. Part of the VINTAGE CLASSICS series.

Poirot Investigates: Eleven Complete Mysteries

Agatha Christie

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Poirot Investigates 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

What can I say , It's Agatha Christie ! She is the best in my book when you talk Mysteries !Add Poirot in the picture and all I can say is WOW ! The stories are excellent as usual . Brilliant writer .

A gift. 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This was a gift for my cousin. He and I both enjoyed the Poirot Mysterys on television. He has really enjoyed the CD's and said he "Might" let me borrow them. I will not hold my breath.
Dianne

Hercule Poirot at his best! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is a great audiobook that contains several mindboggling mysteries! David Suchet is the best man for this job so to speak since he portraited Hercule Poirot in the tv-sent shows.
His interpretation of Hercule Poirot, the voice and everything makes one feel like ones there just beside them!
I highly recommend this one!

Editorial Review:

Two things bind this sampler of thrillers: the diminutive Poirot's deductive brilliance and his partner Hastings's obtuseness. The eleven cases here involve film stars, valuable jewels, and abductions as Poirot stylishly uncovers the truth. This is a thrilling short story collection by the master of mystery and the most popular author of all time.

Jane Austen: The Complete Novels

Jane Austen

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 75 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

bad word 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 4 people found this review helpful.

The book is extremely bad combined, in many chapters.

It's very bad job.

And I could not return it, because otherwise the country (Costa Rica).

Traduzca

Editorial Review:

Jane Austen wrote in the eighteenth century, but her novels are timeless. This complete anthology is unique among single-volume editions of her work because it includes the obscure but delightful Lady Susan, along with the six better-known novels and thirty of Hugh Thomson's irresistible drawings.
All of Jane Austen's novels are love stories, all are stories of country gentry, and all end happily, one way or another. Her plots have the complexity of life and her characters are described with inimitable style and wit—whether caustic or warmly affectionate.
The novels contained in this anthology are Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and Lady Susan. The nineteenth-century illustrations of Hugh Thomson capture the flavor of Jane Austen's characters and enhance this extraordinary collection of the complete works of one of the greatest novelists of all time.

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

Angela Carter

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 34 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

waste of time 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 10 people found this review helpful.

This is bad writing at its worst because it is apparent that it could have maybe been good.

The imagery is dull, cliché, and facile. The stories are predictable and, worst of all, uninteresting. Everything is over-stylized, obvious, and with very little sense of anything novel or surprising. In reality, they are unintelligent and prepubescent. In general, a waste of time.

Angela Carter - The Bloody Chamber 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

A very good collection of short stories.
We had to read this for our English Literature course and I'm very glad I did. Carter is a very talented writer and this book deserves the recognition and awards it got.
The best stories to watch out for are;

The Bloody Chamber,
The Tiger's Bride
The Snow Child
The Werewolf

Carter's language is very elaborate, so if you're going to read it, do as my English tutor said; "Read actively. Have a pen in your hand and a dictionary next to you". Trust me, she was right.
A very good read if you can understand what is going on. All the stories are based on old fairytales (i.e. The Tiger's Bride is based on Beauty and The Beast) so if you can work out how the story is similar and find links you should be able to appreciate the stories.

Editorial Review:

A reissue of a collection of short stories first published ten years ago. They include "The Company of Wolves", on which the prize-winning film of the same name was based. Angela Carter is the author of "Nights at the Circus" and "The Magic Toyshop".

The Yellow Wallpaper (Dover Thrift Editions)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

What's really behind that ugly wallpaper? 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

The Yellow Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gillman is one of the most fascinating short reads ever. I was assigned to read this classic gem in my literature class in College and I couldn't believe how well this short story was written. The book is in first person, it feels like a diary, very personal, intimate, and scary all at the same time. The ending is bone-chilling and brilliant. Gillman is some writer, why haven't I heard about this amazing book before? Wonderful, insightful quick read, a must have for literary fans.

What a weird little book 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I actually read this for free online... it took me about 25 minutes to read the whole story so I'm glad I didn't spend any money on it. But I AM glad that I read it. This is a strange little short story from the viewpoint of a woman who has recently given birth and suffers from post-partum depression. The cure for this at the time was strict bed rest with little to no mental stimulation. Our poor protagonist is married to a physician who believes that she needs to spend as much time as possible resting.

Because women were considered weak and incapable of handling too much thinking, the diagnosis is to prevent them from thinking. This was used to cure anxiety and depression... but anyone who has ever been forced into bedrest knows that all you do when laying there is think... and your thoughts get a little screwy after you've stared at the ceiling counting the dots. So is our heroine loosing her mind or is that horrible wall paper actually changing, showing her things, is there a woman behind bars trying to escape? Or is she projecting her misery with her confinement, her husband, and her situation into the frayed and torn wallpaper.

This was really a fun read that I could envision people having hours and hours of discussion on. It's one of those little bits of writing that you can easily gloss over and not think of again... but if you pull back that first layer you'll discover that there is so much more to this tiny little tale. I highly recommend taking the 20 minutes it will take you to read this, specifically to women and people in the medical profession... the insanity of what the medical profession used to believe is unbelievable.

Editorial Review:

Seven thought-provoking stories employ charm and humor to examine relations between the sexes from a feminist perspective. In addition to the title story, an 1892 classic that recounts a woman’s descent into madness, this collection includes "Cottagette," "Turned," "Mr. Peebles’ Heart," and more.

The Macgregors; Serena & Caine

Nora Roberts

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 38 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Magnificent MacGregors! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

What more can I say? I have fallen in love with this family. From the 18th century clan to the present day, each generation's story is told in Nora Robert's most enchanting style. "Serena and Caine" is the story of two of the three offspring of our patriarch Daniel MacGregor and his wife, Anna Whitfield MacGregor. The first story in the book centers on Serena, Daniel and Anna's only daughter. Serena is out to find her niche in life by taking a break from her rigorous routine of professional student, taking graduate class after graduate class, by spending a year working as a blackjack dealer on a cruise ship. Just as her last voyage sets sail, unbeknown to her, her father has decided it is more than enough time for his daughter to settle down and begin a family of her own. Daniel plants the idea of a taking a relaxing cruise on the luxury liner, The Celebration, in the ear of his business associate, young Justin Blade, with the hope that he will meet up with his daughter (of course Justin doesn't know this) and the inevitable will occur. This story, as most all of the MacGregor stories go, is pure romance with lots of laughs and plenty of soap opera-type gimmicks by the characters. Justin and Serena do meet up and Justin is immediately attracted to her, not even knowing at first that she is Daniel's daughter. Of course Serena is not that easily swayed and when the truth does come out about her father's meddling, it only makes the relationship that much more rocky. As Serena decides they would be better business partners than lovers, she takes Justin up on his offer of a job in his Atlantic City casino, The Comanche. Of course Serena will not bow to working for him, she insists that she be a full partner and they work on equal ground. This scenario sets the groundwork for some terrific storytelling.
The second story centers on Caine, the younger son of Daniel and Anna. Caine, a Boston attorney, goes to visit his sister, Serena, and Justin at their casino and meets up with Diana Blade, Justin's estranged sister. Caine is immediately attracted to Diana, but Diana has a lot of soul-searching to do as she has led a somewhat sheltered life since the age of six years old when both her parents died and her older brother Justin, ten years her senior, left her with her well-to-do, snooty, Aunt Adelaide to be raised while he went out to raise money for his family. Diana grew up believing he deserted her and has lots of ghosts to deal with as Caine decides he wants her just as she is. Diana, being an attorney as well, has decided now is the time to strike out on her own, for the first time in her life, not being told what to do and how to act by her strict Aunt. This story is every bit as good as Serena's and, although romance is a high priority; the storyline is enchanting and holds the reader's attention to the very end.

Editorial Review:

When fiery heiress Serena MacGregor ups the ante on cool Comanche gambler Justin Blade, steamy doesn't begin to describe the results. Attorney Caine MacGregor has rarely met a case--or a woman--he couldn't win. But can he overrule ice princess Diana Blade's adamant objections to love?

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (James Bond Novels)

Ian Fleming

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Bond in Love 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Among the titles of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, I'd have to say that On Her Majesty's Secret Service is my least favorite, with neither the brevity of a Dr. No or Goldfinger nor the plot descriptive nature of The Man with the Golden Gun or From Russia with Love. Even if I dislike the title, however, this is one of Fleming's best Bond books.

The story opens around a year after the events of Thunderball (the intervening book, The Spy Who Loved Me, is not even mentioned). The villain in that book, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the mastermind behind SPECTRE, has been in hiding and James Bond is trying to seek him out. It is a more-or-less futile assignment and Bond is disillusioned enough to consider quitting. Before submitting his resignation letter, however, he takes a break at a casino. During this mini-vacation, he performs a chivalrous act to save a beautiful countess from embarrassment; she in turns, rewards him in her own special way.

This countess, familiarly named Tracy, is also the daughter of a genial but ruthless mob boss who Bond winds up (pardon the pun) bonding with. The boss, Marc-Ange, realizes that his daughter is troubled (in fact, suicidal), but that Bond may be able to help her by marrying her. Bond is not willing to do that, but is willing to see her again after she gets treatment. In the meanwhile, Marc-Ange gives Bond a lead on Blofeld.

Blofeld has holed himself up in the Swiss Alps, where extradition is nearly impossible. Bond goes undercover, hoping to lure Blofeld into Germany where he can be arrested. While there, he stumbles upon a strange plot that seems to involve young women seeking treatment for allergies. What Blofeld's scheme is goes beyond Bond's expertise, but the superspy will have more immediate problems as his cover is threatened.

Eventually, Tracy gets back into the mix, which adds another level to the story. Bond versus Blofeld is good, but at long last, Bond meets a woman who he can truly love. Since the first Bond book, Casino Royale, when Bond found himself betrayed by a lover, he has never been willing to truly risk emotional attachment. This time he does, and this adds an extra depth to this particular novel.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the middle part of what I think of as the Blofeld Trilogy, which started with Thunderball and concludes with You Only Live Twice, so it may not be the best Bond book to start with. For Bond fans, however, this book is a treat and one of the very best that Fleming wrote.