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January 21
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Barbara
marked as to-read:
Empire of Ivory (Temeraire, #4)
by
Naomi Novik
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my rating:
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Barbara
marked as to-read:
Standard of Honor (Templar Trilogy 2)
by
Jack Whyte
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my rating:
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Barbara
marked as to-read:
Haunted (Women of the Otherworld, #5)
by
Kelley Armstrong (Goodreads Author)
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my rating:
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Barbara
marked as to-read:
Mutiny on the Bounty (Paperback)
by
John Boyne
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my rating:
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Barbara
gave  to:
Homesteader, Finding Sharon (Paperback)
by
D. M. McGowan
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my rating:
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Barbara said:
"This western story opens in 1886 in foothill country near Cochrane in the North-West Territories of what will later become Alberta. Henry “Hank” James, late of Farwell (Revelstoke, B.C.), is on a mission to find a woman. While in Farwell Hank Jam...more
This western story opens in 1886 in foothill country near Cochrane in the North-West Territories of what will later become Alberta. Henry “Hank” James, late of Farwell (Revelstoke, B.C.), is on a mission to find a woman. While in Farwell Hank James had built a prosperous freight business and, what he thought, a promising relationship with Sharon Dalton, housekeeper for the magistrate. Sharon had left Farwell in September 1885 after learning that the B.C. police knew about her past and association with some outlaws in Missouri. Hank wasn’t too concerned as some of those outlaws had been his relatives.
After deducting that Sharon had taken a train east to Calgary, Hank, and his partner, Scott Gilmore, went east to search for her. Hank’s other intention for going east was to locate appropriate land for a cattle and horse operation under the Homestead Act. Gilmore is half Lakota Sioux, raised in St. Louis, Missouri with a university education, and from time to time educates Hank James.
A neighbour, Lottie McAdams, is running a homestead after the death of her husband and trying to keep that fact a secret. Under the Homestead Act women had no rights to own property, only men were allowed a quarter section consisting of 160 acres to prove up by making the required improvements.
Portis is a nasty antagonist, keeping the story going well with all sorts of conflicts. He’s used to getting his own way, and when Hank James gets back at him legally he turns to more ruthless methods.
David McGowan has history well documented for the time with the homesteading, the lack of rights for women (considering they were only a man’s property), the North-West Mounted Police, the special promotion that the Canadian government in Ottawa gave to the European and English nobility and gentry to open up the land for business, over the single family homesteading operations. If the small operation homesteaders were run off by the cattle barons, Ottawa tended to look the other way or take sides with the larger ranches.
The story moves along at a good clip with action and new conflicts in each of the chapters which are eventually resolved. There is a continuity to the story without any of the slumps sometimes found in novels. Does Hank James end up with Sharon Dalton? I’m not telling. But I will say that I didn’t want to put the book down once I began it because each chapter urged me on.
Something I really appreciated was that Mr. McGowan included an Author’s Note to verify some of the historical episodes related in the book, although I’m well versed in the history of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
I look forward to reading more of Mr. McGowan’s western books as I like stepping back into history in western Canada. Some times it feels like I’ve gone home because there are phrases that have carried over from those early years to now.
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Barbara
gave to:
Sixty-One Nails (Courts of the Feyre, #1)
by
Mike Shevdon (Goodreads Author)
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my rating:
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Barbara
gave to:
The Sunset Oasis (Hardcover)
by
Bahaa Taher
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my rating:
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Barbara said:
"From the inside flap:
“Set in late-nineteenth-century Egypt, this award-winning novel introduces the work of an acclaimed Egyptian writer for the first time to Canadian readers.
“When disgraced military officer Mahmoud Abd E...more
From the inside flap:
“Set in late-nineteenth-century Egypt, this award-winning novel introduces the work of an acclaimed Egyptian writer for the first time to Canadian readers.
“When disgraced military officer Mahmoud Abd El Zahir is sent to govern the remote Egyptian oasis of Siwa, he knows the danger he faces—two of his predecessors were murdered. But having been accused of disloyalty to the current regime and its British overlords, he has little choice. Rather than stay behind in Cairo, his Irish wife Catherine, insists on accompanying him, hoping to reinvigorate their marriage and to pursue the secrets of Alexander the Great, who she feels convinced is buried in Siwa.
“Neither is prepared for the stultifying heat, the hostility of the townspeople—all but the seductive and troubled Maleeka, who develops a strange friendship with Catherine—or the astonishing and disturbing events that befall them in the dreamlike other-worldliness of the Sunset Oasis.
“In turns mesmerizing and shocking, Sunset Oasis is a complex tale of love and frustrated passions, and of the vicissitudes of power during a time of change, as it tells of people struggling to free themselves from the grip of the past. It is a striking, haunting work by one of the Arab world’s most celebrated writers.”
This book took me right into story immediately, immersing me in the political climate of the time along with the cultural differences of the Egyptians and the nomadic people with the British overlords. Mr. Taher has an excellent way of introducing the conflicts which produce a variety of responses from Mahmoud, Catherine and the residents of Siwa. The mesmerizing description of the desert with its inherent dangers, the caravans, the Bedouin, the townspeople of Siwa and their beliefs, including the historical background all tie in the various details to make the story captivating.
Once I began this interesting book I found it difficult to put down. I wanted to know more about the people who lived so far removed from Cairo, via a caravan trip of two weeks along a trail that may disappear at any time with the winds shifting the sand over the tracks or the wells where the camels were to be watered. A mighty Persian army from long ago on its way to Siwa had been buried forever under the shifting sands. There were also the hazards of wolves, snakes and scorpions that frequented the campsites.
There were situations Catherine got herself into that I recognized would lead to conflict with the townspeople: wearing men’s clothes and going without a veil, and going to homes without being invited first. The woman seemed oblivious to the reactions she was creating while going on about her explorations of the town and nearby areas in the search for Alexander the Great’s burial site, other antiquities and painted hieroglyphics.
Mahmoud is stuck in a tough situation and location due to his alleged disgrace. He does the best he can under the circumstances and procedures he has been provided by the British overlords.
Many of the secondary characters hold their own mystique within the story: Sergeant Ibraheem, assigned to Mahmoud, is elderly with many grandchildren to feed as his children had died of an cholera epidemic; Sheikh Yahya, an elderly scholar, wise beyond his years; who perceives trouble brewing among the council, and his niece, Maleeka, married off to a man old enough to be her grandfather to settle her mischievous ways; Maleeka, a precocious girl, interested in things no one before or after her was interested in, such as the statues and paintings in the ruins of antiquities, of her ability to sculpt from a handful of clay statues that matched those in the ruins perfectly.
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Barbara
gave to:
The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction: Sixtieth Anniversary Anthology (Paperback)
by
Gordon Van Gelder
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my rating:
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Barbara said:
"Gordon Van Gelder has been the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction since 1996. Mr. Van Gelder prepared brief paragraphs to introduce each of the short fiction selections of when it was first published in the magazine. He also included...more
Gordon Van Gelder has been the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction since 1996. Mr. Van Gelder prepared brief paragraphs to introduce each of the short fiction selections of when it was first published in the magazine. He also included a little background on the authors which I found to be a nice touch.
It was lovely going back to some old favourite stories I had not read in years to reread them in this anthology, such as Flowers for Algernon. Many of the authors I had not read before and found their stories to be very intersting, and hope to see other stories written by them.
The collection between science fiction and fantasy is even with excellent choices made by Mr. Van Gelder.(less)
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November 13, 2009
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Barbara
marked as to-read:
What Remains of Heaven: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery (Sebastian St. Cyr, #5)
by
C.S. Harris
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my rating:
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