Deadly Election, Lindsey Davis

5 stars

First Sentence: Never hold an election in July.

Thoughts: There are some eternal truths in this world, and that first sentence is one of them. July is too hot to do anything in the northern hemisphere except melt slowly into an uncomfortable puddle. But it’s also the month when Domitian is out of town, so if there was any time to have a pretense at democracy it’s now.

July is also not a good time to hold an auction because most people with money have left Rome for the coast, including Albia’s parents. But the Callisti need money now so they cleaned out their warehouse filled with old furniture, knickknacks, paddywhacks, and dog’s bones from their lost home in Pompeii and hired the Didius auction house to sell the less damaged pieces. They expect a good sale; enough time has passed since The Eruption to leave a veneer of allure over Pompeian pieces.

There was no allure to the smelly old chest, though. When the auction house workers opened it up, they quickly closed it and sent for Albia. When she came, she opened the chest to reveal a man’s decaying body inside. She quickly closed it as well and sent the chest to an undertaker she didn’t like. Fundanus may be an officious jerk, but he was good at post-mortems. Unfortunately he couldn’t tell who the man was. The only personal item left with him (besides his clothes) was a plain gold ring like every other equestrian wore.

Meanwhile Faustus found out that Albia came back to town after visiting her parents. He hires her to help his friend Sextus Vibius Marinus who’s running for next year’s plebian aedile. Since Faustus ran the previous year and won, he’s Vibius’ campaign manager. He wants Albia to dig up dirt on the other candidates that they can use in attack speeches. Albia is not impressed with Vibius. Something about him doesn’t sit right with her. Maybe it’s the way his wife is nowhere to be found while the other candidates’ wives are often seen out and about in the Forum with their husbands.

Meanwhile the Callisti auction is going ahead. The smelly chest (now empty of its gruesome contents) sells the first day. Some questioning by the auction workers reveals that the Callisti used a proxy to buy it back. When Albia asks them why, they feed her a line about keeping the notorious chest in the family to protect their reputation. Being Falco’s daughter and an experienced investigator in her own right, she doesn’t believe them. Then the chest comes back up on the block with a different body inside. Oh for cryin’ out….

What is going on with this chest? Who was the first dead man? What is the connection among all the candidates for plebian aedile? Where is Vibius’ wife? And, most importantly, will Albia and Faustus finally succumb to the sexual tension that’s been building between them since the start of the series?

I’ll answer the last question: yes. Yes they do.

The Confessions of Samuel Pepys: Private Revelations from Britain’s Most Famed Diarist, Guy de la Bédoyère

4 stars

First Sentence: The celebrated seventeenth-century English diarist and naval officer Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) has been well served when it comes to biographies and editions of his diary.

Thoughts: Samuel Pepys’ diary is a fascinating look back at the world of 1660s London and the court of King Charles the Spaniel…SECOND. King Charles the Second. It’s famous, and rightly so, for its cast of famous characters from the king and his various mistresses to the Earl of Sandwich to Sir W. Penn (father of the Penn who founded Pennsylvania) and G. Carteret (namesake of Carteret County, NC). The most famous passages are those detailing the Great Fire of London in 1666. But one mystery remaining is what is hidden behind the polyglot Sam used when he was up to no good, an odd mixture of French, Spanish, and Latin, lightly dusted with Greek.

There never has been a good translation of the polyglot. When the diary was first published in the 1800s, such things were not translated because innocent minds might read them and become tainted with Sin. The passages were published as they were written with no attempt an explaining what they actually said. All that was known was that the polyglot showed up when Sam was tomcatting around. But we live in the future now with access to future technology. De la Bédoyère used that technology to make a new transcription of the diary, specifically the dirty bits.

He used digital images of the diary that he could do a proper CSI “zoom-enhance” and with a copy of the shorthand manual Pepys used, made a more correct transcription so he could get the correct words in the polyglot (some of the Spanish was originally incorrectly transcribed as French, the spelling wasn’t always correct in the original which caused more mistakes, that sort of thing.) Then he made a new translation that revealed that ol’ Sammy was a very, VERY bad boy, especially from 1665 to 1668.

Even though he had been married to his wife Elizabeth for over a decade, Sam did not hesitate to trade sex for favors. Specifically having sex with various men’s wives in return for promotions or good jobs with the Navy for the husbands. A lot of people knew Sam had a weakness for pretty women (even in church*) and they used that to their advantage. The most famous example is the Bagwells. Pepys was more than willing to give Mr. Bagwell a good naval job in exchange for the enjoyment of Mrs. Bagwell’s favors, even when she wasn’t willing to give them up. Yes, Sam straight-up raped her a few times because it was the 1660s and he was a man and women didn’t have rights to their own bodies under the law. You know, the good old days.

Sam got so reckless that he eventually got caught as we knew he would. One day in late 1668, Elizabeth caught him with his hand up her maid’s skirt. This led to a huge fight, the maid’s dismissal, and Sam being brought to heel. Even though he did try to chase the maid down when he thought Elizabeth wasn’t paying attention. However, he did realize that he needed to appreciate his wife more (in all senses of the word) and they were reconciling when the diary ended in 1669. Why did it end? Because Sam’s vision was failing. He probably had astigmatism, but reading glasses hadn’t been invented yet so the diary had to end.

As you may suspect, this book is a one-sided look at Pepys because it’s only the dirty bits and Sam’s views on women (and his viewing women). The full diary (linked above) has a more nuanced look at him, but since his affiliation with the Royal Society, his love of music, and his business with the Royal Navy has been thoroughly covered over the last century, it’s not important for de la Bédoyère’s purposes which is to bring the hidden parts to light. So we get the bad side of Samuel Pepys instead of the good. He acknowledges this in the epilogue when he discusses the two sides of Pepys:

Pepys was a bully, a vain and philandering hypocrite, and a domineering and mean-minded husband. He was capable of sexual violence as well as being coercive, deceitful, and manipulative. He groomed his female targets into submission and disregarded their feelings. He was also easily manipulated by others who spotted his inclinations. Some of his conduct was not exceptional for his own time or since but his candid diary ensured that sordid and discomfiting aspects of his private life would be preserved among the record of his other daily activities. Pepys probably also suffered from a behavioural addiction manifested in the compulsive pursuit of subversive extra-marital sex. This also added to his sense of entitlement. Secrecy was part of the thrill.[…]

Samuel Pepys was equally capable of generosity, compassion, and love. His enduring loyalty was one of his most edifying characteristics. He constructed a system of patronage which, despite being muddied by the sexual services he demanded from the wives of some of the men he helped forward, he diligently maintained long afterwards. He was meticulous, exceptionally well-organized, and a superb administrator. He had a form of high intelligence, had an overwhelming of credulous curiosity about life, and a well-developed appreciation of art and music. He was an invigorating individual and was manifestly held in great esteem by many of his contemporaries, which he enthusiastically recorded at every opportunity, though he also made enemies.

All in all, though, I liked the book. I still follow his diary online and I’m still fascinated by his life. Although I wouldn’t let him near me or any woman I know without at least three other people in the room and a can of bear spray in case he got grabby.

*Especially in church.

Fireflies and Chocolate, Ailish Sinclair

4 stars

First Sentence: “Ach, but will you look at that?”

Thoughts: It’s been about 150 years since the Mermaid and the Bear found peace in northern Scotland. Their great-great-however many times great granddaughter Elizabeth Manteith is living in the pink castle with her father, mother, a pair of servants, and her spaniel Prince Charles of All Scotland and Britain and the World. Well, not her father. He’s currently off with the real Prince Charles Hoping to Be of All Scotland and Britain and the World. Her mother is confined to her room doped up on laudanum to deal with the lasting grief of her young son’s death a few years before. So it’s basically just Elizabeth, the servants, and the dog.

Her father hasn’t forgotten her, though. For her upcoming sixteenth birthday he sends her some money to buy a real horse. She, Prince Charles the Dog, and the manservant go to Aberdeen to find a suitable steed. While there, Prince Charles runs off and Elizabeth runs after him. She’s promptly lost. Fortunately a kindly stranger says he saw her dog and leads her to the docks. Unfortunately he’s a slaver who shoves her into a bag and knocks her unconscious as soon as they get to his ship.

She comes to in the hold with a lot of other people going to America to be slaves or “indentured servants.” (Basically slavery with an expiration date.) She makes friends with Peter, the boy she’s chained to, and they support each other through the long, miserable journey. When they reach Pennsylvania, though, they’re separated and sold to different people.

Elizabeth convinces herself that she’s in love with Peter because she’s a hopelessly romantic sixteen-year-old. When she’s bought by an elderly woman named Mrs. Sauer (or “Sour”), she runs away as soon as she gets a chance, hoping to find Peter again. Instead she finds an American Indian woman and an escaped Black woman living on their own in the woods. They introduce her to her new home and introduce her to a nice Quaker man who knows Mrs. Sour. He tells Elizabeth that she was actually bought for the woman’s son Michael who doesn’t believe in slavery. Eventually he convinces her to go back to them.

Michael is an invalid tended by his faithful servant (not slave) Comfort. When Elizabeth gets to his house she finds it’s a proper bachelor’s quarters. She immediately starts cleaning up the kitchen and making an onion tart to supplement the plain bread and cheese the men have been living off of. She finds out that Michael’s main problem is laudanum and helps him get off the junk. As he recovers, he takes more of an interest in the plantation. He discovers that his overseer is a right bastard and gets rid of him. He frees the slaves working in the fields and gives them a stake in the plantation. I didn’t think this novel would be as much of a secret fantasy as its predecessor, but here we are. I ain’t complainin’.

Elizabeth goes to town with Michael where she meets Ben Franklin. She puts in an order with him for some handbills to post that describe Peter and tells him where to find her. Mr. Franklin also helps Elizabeth send some letters back to Scotland to let her family know what happened to her.

This isn’t a fairy tale like the original Manteith tale, but it is a nice coming-of-age tale about a woman suddenly dumped into the New World. While she isn’t part of the troubles in 1740s Scotland (which she learns about from letters from home) she has enough troubles on her own end. But there are wonders as well, like fireflies which I didn’t know were a North American only phenomenon. People in Scotland are used to finding hedgehogs in their gardens so it all evens out.

And in case you’re wondering, Prince Charles the Dog is fine. The manservant found him in Aberdeen and brought him back home. Elizabeth got a new dog in Pennsylvania anyway, and he was a Very Good Boy.

Small Angels, Lauren Owen

3.5 stars

First Sentence: Tell it to the trees.

Thoughts: Most of the people in the village know not to go into Mockbeggar Woods. Chloe doesn’t know why, so she asks the town blabbermouth about it at her hen party. He tells her most of the story of the last Gonne funeral, but he stops before the good part, leaving Chloe still confused but very interested in the woods.

She had come to the village with her fiance Sam to get married. Sam grew up there, but Chloe had only been there once before to meet his parents. She fell in love with the little country church, Saint Somebody and All Angels, aka Small Angels, on that visit. When she found out that it was being renovated as a wedding venue, one of her big decisions was made.

The villagers are happy about the marriage, but they’re nervous about opening Small Angels again. The last event there was the fateful funeral. The Gonnes, who lived near the church, had a lot of rituals to keep the forest quiet, but they’re all dead or gone except the youngest, Lucia, who isn’t keeping up the old traditions. That means the woods are waking up again. Why? They’re haunted by an angry ghost.

Harry Child was born to a “fallen woman” who lived in a cabin in the woods in the early 1800s. He was adopted by the Gonnes and raised as their own son. He and his adopted brother were the best of friends until they had a falling out in their early adulthood. Harry tried to hide in Small Angels from his brother, but he was tricked into coming out where he was torn apart by his brother’s dogs. Ever since then he’s haunted the woods, fenced in only by the Gonne’s rituals.

Two hundred years later, Lucia and her sisters liked to put on plays in the woods. They thought the trees and the spirits liked to hear the stories. Lucia went farther than the others, though, and ended up befriending Harry’s ghost. Everything was fine until she met Sam’s sister Kate and fell in love. Harry didn’t want to share Lucia with anyone, so he started coming out of the woods to cause trouble. It all came to a head at the funeral of Lucia’s grandfather when her sister Elphine was killed.

Now Chloe’s inadvertently stirring things up. She goes for a walk in the woods and accidentally wakes Harry up. This time he’s not only threatening the village, but the wedding. Kate, who’s back in town to be Sam’s best woman, goes to Lucia to see what they can do. And see if their relationship can be repaired, but that’s only a very minor part of the story and feels kind of tacked on so the book can be marketed to the sapphic romance crowd.

Me, I’m here for vengeful ghosts and this book delivers. Eventually. The story kind of drags. I blame Lucia because her life story is interspersed with the modern-day chapters and it goes. on. forever. Yeah, we get it, your grandma didn’t like you and you’re the misunderstood youngest child and a wee lesbian, can we get back to Harry now?

Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection, John Green

3 stars

First Sentence: Around the turn of the nineteenth century, the Scottish tinkerer and chemist James Watt began working on a new project.

Thoughts: Did you know that poverty levels affect healthcare and that poor people and poor nations have worse healthcare than rich ones do? Because if you didn’t, Green will make sure you do very quickly as he repeats this at least 7,000 times in a 198-page book. You see, I’m not sure if you noticed this, but TB rates in poor countries are worse than in rich ones, and rich companies and well-meaning organizations tend to gatekeep essential medications and treat poor people like idiots because they don’t have money. Did you know that money is the main factor in determining your standard of living? Did you? DID YOU? BETTER SAY YES!

Sorry. I’m sure you can tell that the repetition of basic economic truths got on my last raw, bleeding nerve after the third repetition. I’m sure this book passed by at least one editor on its way to the printing press, but I guess that editor was too busy playing on their phone to notice the page length was padded out by constant restatement.

The focus of the book is divided into two parts: the history of tuberculosis and the case history of Henry, a boy in Sierra Leone that Grene met when he was visiting that country. Henry had a persistent case of antibiotic-resistant TB that kept him in hospitals since he was a young boy. I will let you know how he turns out for two reasons: 1) I got very invested in Henry and had to know before the end if he lived or died and 2), Green is the person who wrote The Fault in Our Stars* and I don’t trust his pen near sick children. Henry’s fine. He beat TB and is now a Youtuber in Sierra Leone. Go Henry.

The history of TB was the most interesting part to me, but it was skimmed over. I would have liked more insight into how the disease affected various cultures, but that would have cut into valuable harping over economic inequities time. I was especially intrigued by how Victorian culture popularized the sickly artist trope, specifically the belief that having TB made one especially creative (see: John Keats). It wasn’t until very recently that people figured out that creativity flourishes in spite of, not because of, one’s illness.

Speaking of artists with TB, this particular sentence was the main reason why I doubted if an editor cast their full attention on the manuscript as it landed on their desks. Emphasis added, of course:

Even in the 1940s, TB infections and disease remained common–twentieth-century TB survivors include Beatle Ringo Starr (who was institutionalized with TB as a teenager), the novelist George Orwell (who died of TB in 1950, just as curative treatment was becoming available), the writer Thomas Wolfe (who died of tuberculous meningitis in 1938), and the actor Vivian Leigh (who lived with TB for over twenty-five years).

Folks, let’s chip in and buy the editorial staff of Crash Course books a nice set of Merriam-Websters. While you’re doing that, I’ll head up the road to Riverside Cemetery in Asheville to visit Wolfe’s grave and ask him how he managed to both survive and die from tubercular meningitis at the same time. That’s quite a trick.

*I absolutely refuse to either read that book or watch that movie. I, too, spent my adolescence in and out of hospitals with a chronic illness and I don’t need that negativity back in my life. The last two years gave me enough flashbacks, thank you very much.

Illusion, Paula Volsky

5 stars

First Sentence: When one of the serfs was caught with a bundle of seditious pamphlets in his pocket, the Marquis vo Derrivalle was understandably infuriated.

Thoughts: In a fantasy version of 1780s France, the peasants are revolting. Whether that last word is a verb or an adjective depends on your place in society. The Exalted choose the adjective, the lower classes like the verb.

The Marquis vo Derrivalle decides to Make an Example of the serf with the seditious pamphlets and arranges a public beating. His daughter, Eliste, doesn’t much care until her maid Stelli, who is engaged to the unlucky serf, begs her to intervene with her father. Eliste doesn’t want to until she finds out that Stelli’s brother, Dref, is going to speak with the Marquis. In the mood her father’s in, Eliste knows this would be a very bad idea. She convinces Dref that now is not the time to talk to the Marquis, then asks her father if he would go for a milder punishment. Her father’s furious about the pamphlets and refuses to listen to her.

The serf dies after the beating. Dref, who was forced to watch with everyone else on the estate, starts a fistfight and ends up punching the Marquis. That’s a death sentence right there. Eliste doesn’t want her friend to die. He was educated with her as an experiment by her father and ended up being a genuine polymath. She asks her Uncle Quinz, a recluse magician, if he will help Dref escape with his magic. He does, and Dref makes his way to the capital, Shereen where he can hide in the crowds. Eliste follows a few weeks later to begin her service as one of the Queen’s Butterflies, her ladies-in-waiting.

When she gets to the Shereen her grandmother Zeralenn takes over her education. She teaches Eliste the most socially acceptable (to Exalted) way to sit, talk, enjoy things, have affairs, and dress. Eliste does honor to her grandmother’s teachings by making a splash when she arrives at court, even catching the eye of the king’s own brother. Most people consider the prince a catch, but Eliste thinks he’s a boor. That doesn’t stop him from endlessly pursuing her. Fortunately the peasants revolt and break into the palace before the prince can force her to do anything she doesn’t want to.

The revolution divides into two factions: the Nirennists and the Reparationists. The Nirennists are led by philosopher Shorvi Nirienne who’s thought a lot about the best way to create a better society. The Reparationists are led by Whiss Valeur, a man with a huge chip on his shoulder. Since they’re willing to resort to violence, the Reparationists soon gain the upper hand. Thanks to some long-dormant magical Sentients they find in a basement in the palace, they start the Reign of Terror. Instead of a guillotine they have Kokotte, a Sentient cabinet that reduces any flesh put inside to a heap of ashes. Soon she’s being fed a steady diet of former Exalted.

Eliste goes on quite a journey in the course of the novel. From a spoiled Exalted brat she becomes a prisoner kept in her grandmother’s house with her annoying cousin Aurelie* until she escapes and ends up on the street, trying to find a way to survive that doesn’t piss off the local thieves & beggars’ guild and keeps her from becoming a prostitute. She reunites with Dref because you knew their paths would cross again and joins the Niriennists as they try to stop the Reparationists from killing everyone that Whiss doesn’t like. Meanwhile Whiss’ cheese gains ever greater distance from his cracker.

It’s an exciting read with a satisfying ending. Everyone gets what they deserve except Eliste’s dog Prince vo Plume. Unfortunately the dog dies. In my head Eliste gets another dog after everything calms down. I imagine she’ll name it Plume in honor of the pup that sacrificed so much to save her. He was a Good Dog.

*If you don’t want to slap Aurelie until your hand falls off, you have no soul. La!

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier, Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill

3 stars

First Sentence: Bayswater Road, London, 1958.

Thoughts: It’s the 1950s and the League has been broken up for years. Mina and Allan, both immortal and rejuvenated after a visit to Ayesha’s spring in Africa in the 1910s, are on the run from the authorities. MI5 is now doing the job the League used to (mainly their agent Jimmy, descendant of Campion Bond). England is recovering from the post-war Big Brother era. It’s kind of a mess.

The government still has records about the old league, the most dangerous of which have been collected in a Black Dossier hidden at the British Museum. Mina sneaks in one night and steals it, intent on keeping it away from the current spymasters. There are things in there nobody needs to know, specifically the documents that come to light as the reader progresses. The book is the actual dossier, interspersed with Mina and Allan’s journey from London to their hideout in the Blazing World in the Arctic.

The dossier is a hodgepodge of different types of documents, from official reports, excerpts from Campion Bond’s memoir, a lost Shakespeare play about how the Faerie Queen Gloriana founded the League, a comic book about the life of Orlando (the one from Woolf’s book with a greatly expanded backstory both in lore and time), and, for some reason, a Tijuana Bible. There’s one chapter from an On the Road-type novel that is absolutely unreadable. Much like the real On the Road, so points for accuracy, I guess.

The final part of the book requires the use of 3D glasses (included) and features a live Golliwog doll because what in the actual hell. Out of all the Olde English dolls from history, that’s the one that Moore and O’Neill decided to immortalize in their series. Tell me you’re an old white man without saying you’re an old white man.

Enemies at Home, Lindsey Davis

5 stars

First Sentence: Even before I started, I knew I should say no.

Thoughts: A newlywed couple was found murdered in their bed. Their slaves, fearing they’d be accused, escaped across town to seek sanctuary in the Temple of Ceres. If they hadn’t, the vigiles would have automatically said the slaves did it, convicted them, and thrown them all to the lions. That was the reality of being a slave in ancient Rome. Investigation was easy for the vigiles.

It wasn’t easy for Flavia Albia. Her friend Faustus was the aedile headquartered at the Temple of Ceres and he wanted to know if the slaves were actually guilty or not, so he asked her to investigate. He arranged quarters for her at the murder house and assigned one of his own slaves, an adolescent boy named Dromo, to stay with her and run errands for her. A trip from Fountain Court on the Palatine to the rich neighborhoods on the Esquiline was a long trip for a daily commute, especially in the summer.

Albia’s initial inquiries leave her with more questions than answers. The steward, a freedman named Polycarpus, seemed helpful enough, but he was clearly hiding something. So are the slaves claiming sanctuary. The one slave left in the house, Myla, had just given birth and so was pretty much useless. Of course, according to Polycarpus and the others, she was always useless, which begs the question why she was kept on staff for so long. Then there are the neighbors, some of whom saw something, some of whom saw nothing, and none of which are much help.

Then Polycarpus is found murdered. A while later, Albia’s uncle Justinius, who was helping her deal with the local vigiles, was attacked when he was heading home one night. That was a big deal because Justinius was a senator and it was a high crime to attack senators. Unless you’re Domitian, of course. Could the Esquiline crime syndicate be behind the murders and the attack? Who knows? Albia and Faustus are having trouble getting in contact with them. And now that they know the syndicates might be involved, the investigation just got a lot more dangerous.

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War, Nathaniel Philbrick

3 stars

First Sentence: We all want to know how it was in the beginning.

State: Massachusetts
Have I Been There: No
Do I Want to Go There: I would like to see all the history

The first part of this book was interesting. It was all about the Pilgrims, who they were and why they came to North America. Who they were: Puritans who thought the Church of England didn’t go far enough in erasing its Catholic past. They ended up leaving England and went to Leipzig in The Netherlands where there was a large colony of English Puritans. Why they came to North America: they decided the Puritans in Leipzig were too wordly and decided to move across the ocean to start their own Kingdom of God in the New World.

Have I complained recently about living in a country founded by religious fanatics? Only in my head? I’ll spare you, then. You’re welcome.

The first thing that happened to the Pilgrims is getting ripped off on transport. One ship, Speedwell, sprung a few leaks so the congregation on that ship had to join their fellows on the Mayflower which also contained some ordinary people looking to start a new life. The Speedwell turned around back to England and all the leaks miraculously dried up. Those old sea captains were wily, they were.

After a long and arduous voyage, Mayflower made it to Massachusetts. They were actually heading to Long Island, but weather intervened as it is wont to do. After some exploration and stealing the natives’ corn caches, they settled down in Plymouth which was not the best place. The future site of Boston was just a few miles further north near a better river mouth, but that was left for later settlers. The natives, meanwhile, were not best pleased with all these Europeans settling on their coast, especially after a lot of them (the Indians) had died from a plague started by other Europeans that were fishing their waters and cutting down their forests. Thanks to some clever diplomacy and medical supplies, the Pilgrims made good with Massasoit, the leader of the Wampanoags, and peace reigned over the land.

No thanks to Miles Standish, but the way. He comes across as a complete jerk who let his gun do his thinking for him. Truly he was a Great Bastard of History.

A couple of decades later, Massasoit was dead and his sons took over. This was the beginning of King Phillip’s War, the biggest American war you’ve never heard of. This is when the book grinds to a complete halt because Philbrick takes us through every. Single. Battle. Until the war, mercifully, ends. I was tuned out for this section because war is boring.

If you like war stories, you might actually like the second half of the book, but I don’t and I didn’t. I prefer exploratory history so the first half was my favorite. But different people like different things. That’s why there’s such a variety of books in the world.

The Mermaid and the Bear, Ailish Sinclair

5 stars

First Sentence: The first time the sea killed me, my brother brought me back to life.

Thoughts: This is a Tudor-era fairy tale. A princess (rich girl, Isobell) runs away from a wicked man (two, actually, her oldest brother and his best friend) and finds herself in a castle filled with kindly animals (people) ruled by a bear (the Laird). She even works as a scullery maid when she first gets at the castle for the proper Cinderella vibe.

Isobell, her good brother, and his best friend have run away to Scotland from London so Isobell won’t be forced to marry Wicked Richard. They end up at a pink granite castle near Aberdeen. Even though Bessie, the housekeeper, knows that Isobell is on the run from something, she hires her on as a maid and her companions as farm workers. Isobell rooms with Agnes, the governess of Wee Thomas, the Laird’s son. They kinda sorta get along, but Agnes has a chip on her shoulder about something.

There’s a pool on the estate where Isobell likes to bathe. One days she’s splashing around when she notices a bear looking at her from the edge of the woods. She dives under the water until it goes away. When she gets back to the castle, she learns the Laird has returned from wherever he was and he told Bessie he saw a mermaid in the pool. And so the first meeting of Isobell and Laird Thomas Manteith becomes a legend.

Then Agnes completely ignores Wee Thomas when he falls ill and Isobell takes over. For saving his son, the Laird makes Isobell the new governess and boots Agnes down to the kitchen. That’s when Isobell finds out that the chip on Agnes’ shoulder is her own designs on the Laird. Now that Isobell’s caught his eye, Agnes has no chance. Not that she ever had one, but try telling her that.

Meanwhile Isobell befriends the Laird’s mother-in-law, Christen Michell, who stuck around after her daughter died. She introduces Isobell to the Catholic faith and the secret Masses held in the old smugglers’ tunnels under the castle. Isobell’s not so sure about Popery, but she likes the ceremony so she goes down there sometimes with Christen.

After Christmas, the attraction between the Laird and Isobell can’t be denied so they get married. Agnes is furious and gets herself fired. This is the first step in her revenge. She’s aware of the current trends, specifically that thanks to James I and IV, there’s a mania for witch hunting sweeping the kingdom. All she has to do is accuse Isobell of being a witch and Christen for being a secret Papist and the law will take care of her obstacles for her.

The last part of the book is based on the real witch trials that took place in Aberdeen in the 1600s. They were a lot like the Salem witch trials from the end of the century without teenage scapegoats. Don’t you love it when people use religion to hurt others because they can’t get their way? I sure don’t!